Posted by Sr. Terry Rickard, O.P., D.Min. | Filed under God in the Stuff of Life: Sr. Terry Rickard, Reflections on the coming Sunday's Gospel | May 19, 2017 No Comments »

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, which the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows it. But you know it, because it remains with you, and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me, because I live and you will live (John 14:15-19).
 
There may be no greater assurance in times of trouble than the promise, “I will be there for you.” In that vein, I was touched by a story I read in Chicken Soup for the Soul which reminded me of Jesus’ promise to his disciples in today’s Gospel: “I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.”
 
This is a true story from the devastating 1989 Armenian earthquake that took only minutes to kill thirty thousand people. Moments after the earthquake rocked the country, a father ran to the elementary school to search for his son. When the father arrived, he saw that the school had been leveled. He remembered his promise to his son: “No matter what happens, I will be there for you.” He went to the area that had been his son’s classroom and began to dig, removing rock by rock from the rubble. Others began to arrive—parents, policemen, and firemen—and soon they told him his efforts were useless, all are lost. As others stood paralyzed and sobbing, the young father kept digging. For eight hours, then 16, then 32, then 36 hours, he dug—he would not be deterred.
 
Finally, after thirty-eight hours, he pulled back a boulder and heard his son’s voice. He called out to his boy, “Armand! Armand!” And a voice answered him, “Dad, it’s me!” The boy continued, “I told the other kids not to worry. I told them if you were alive, you’d save me, and when you saved me, they’d be saved too. Because you promised me, ‘No matter what, I’ll always be there for you.’”
 
In today’s gospel passage, which is from the farewell discourse, Jesus extends the sentiment “I will be there for you” to his closest companions. Jesus knows they will soon witness his suffering and death. They will be wrought with fear and pain as he his torn from them. He promises them that he will send his own Spirit to come as Advocate, protector, and divine friend. He will not leave them orphaned; he will abide with them and accompany them on their life journey through the power of his Spirit.
 
No matter what may come our way, we can face it with confidence and hope, knowing we are never alone. God will keep his promise to us—he will always be there for us. The promise that we will not be left orphaned when Jesus returns to his Father; the promise that the Spirit sent by Jesus will abide with us and all believers; the promise that the love of God that comes to us through the Spirit will overflow into the lives of others.
 
Sr. Terry Rickard is the Executive Director of RENEW International and a Dominican Sister from Blauvelt, NY.

Posted by RENEW | Filed under Reflections on the coming Sunday's Gospel | May 15, 2017 No Comments »

“Jesus said to his disciples: ‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows him. But you know him, because he remains with you, and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me, because I live and you will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you. Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me. And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him’” (John 14:15-21).
 
During these final weeks of the Easter season, the Church invites us to linger with Jesus and his disciples in an intimate farewell the night before he died. He is deeply sensitive to their human fears and hopes, and he hears the disciples’ unspoken need for something to hold onto as he seems about to abandon them.
 
Today, Jesus hears our need for the same reassurance. Writers of both the Old Testament and New Testament repeatedly remind us that the God of love delights in making and keeping promises. Jesus fulfills that tradition by giving his friends—and us—a series of remarkable promises: “Though I disappear from you physically, I will not leave you orphans.” “I will remain with you through my Spirit.” “To those who obey my commands, I will reveal myself.”
 
We will need to recall these promises many times during our lives when it seems as if we are suffering alone. The action of the Spirit who is Love connects the promises of an abiding presence with a new kind of knowledge. Jesus promises a depth of knowledge available only to those who obey his commandment: “Love one another as I have loved you.” To love like this is immensely challenging, but what a reward it brings: “To those who obey my commands I will reveal myself.”
 
Those who work among the poor sometimes say they know what it means to experience love as a way of knowing—not only knowing each other but also knowing everything better through each other. Mother Teresa made no formal study of economics or psychology but lived among the destitute on the streets of Calcutta, listening to their needs, healing their bodily and spiritual wounds, knowing them in a way most others could not. To those who love as Mother Teresa loved, the poor are a mystery in which God is waiting to be revealed. That’s why those who work among the poor often say “I receive much more than I give.”
 
– How do promises you have exchanged with friends and family strengthen you when you feel weak?
 
Adapted from Word on the Go, a downloadable resource from RENEW International.

Posted by Sr. Terry Rickard, O.P., D.Min. | Filed under God in the Stuff of Life: Sr. Terry Rickard, Reflections on the coming Sunday's Gospel | May 12, 2017 No Comments »

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also” (John 14:1-3).
 
Three months after my brother Paul was diagnosed with metastasized cancer, he was in the hospital and dying. He was the father of 7 and the grandfather of 13 and had lived a full life. However, we were in disbelief and shock at the suddenness of his deterioration. Two days before he passed away, he rallied and asked to speak privately with his wife of more than 50 years and their eldest son. He spoke of his deep love for his wife and each of his children, and then he told his eldest to “take care of your mother” and, most importantly, “do not fight with her.” He then told my nephew, “Love your two boys, and bring them up with good moral values and faith.” Paul asked his son to kiss him goodbye—my nephew doesn’t remember kissing his dad since he was a little boy. The origin of the word “good-bye” is “God be with you.” My brother assured his beloved wife and oldest child that all would be well—God was with them. Paul trusted that God had a place for him and that God would allow Paul to watch over his family.
 
Jesus begins his good-byes to his disciples, a few days before his death, with a comforting idea for those who are anxious about what happens when our lives are over. Jesus assures his friends that they need not worry: he is going to prepare the way before them. Put in everyday language, it may sound like this: “We have plenty of room, and we will welcome you.” “Many dwelling places” means a place for everyone. It is not a matter of better or worse, a mansion or a small apartment. There is no consideration of being able to pay the mortgage or afford the rent. Jesus says, “Where I am, there you may be also” (3)—not only now but forever.
 
Thomas then speaks for all of us when he asks for more information. How can we know the way? “The Way” is a code word for the new path to union with God. Following Christ, who is the way, is a total re-orientation of our lives toward God. This re-orientation awakens us to new life, just as Lazarus experienced a return to life upon hearing the words of Jesus. Jesus, as he assures Thomas, is the way, and the Father and Jesus are one. Philip then asks Jesus the obvious: “Show us the Father.” And Jesus, a bit exasperated, answers Philip’s question with a totally new vision of God: “I am in the Father and the Father is in me” (10, 11). That is an explanation of the message of incarnation proclaimed in the first words of this Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (1:1). Jesus is the Word of God in our midst—not metaphorically, but truly with and among us. Jesus makes it clear that God is not “up there” but here among us, as the word “Emmanuel” signifies: “with us is God.”
 
Jesus assures us that “with us is God” as he shows us the way of love in the ups and downs of life, in sickness and in health, and especially on our journey from death to life. He reminds us in this good-bye scene not to be anxious; wherever we are and whatever situation we find ourselves in, there God will also be.
 
Sr. Terry Rickard is the Executive Director of RENEW International and a Dominican Sister from Blauvelt, NY.

Posted by Charles Paolino | Filed under The Everyday Gospel: Deacon Charles Paolino | May 10, 2017 No Comments »

I once overheard a man telling his companion that she was overreacting to whatever situation they were discussing.
 
“Ask yourself this,” he said. “A hundred years from now, who will know the difference?”
 
That advice immediately made me think of the same sentiment put in another way and in another language: “Quid hoc ad aeternitatem?’’ — “What is this in eternity?’’
 
That is said to have been a favorite expression of St. Bernard of Clairvaux and St. Aloysius Gonzaga; I have known of it since I was about 14 years old.
 
And I know exactly where I first heard it: in “My Prayer-Book” by Father Francis Xavier Lasance.
 
A beat-up copy of that book was left in our parish church when I was an altar boy, and when no one had claimed it after a very long time, the curate, Fr. Bernard McKenna, gave it to me.
 
That was in 1956, and the book is on my desk now.
 
“My Prayer-Book” was first copyright in 1908 and again in 1936. When the one I have was published, it sold for anywhere from $1.75 to $10.00, depending on the binding. A replica of the 1908 edition is on sale now for about $26.00.
 
The book is 5.5 by 3.5 inches and it contains more than 700 pages of “reflections, counsels, prayers, and devotions” as the title page reports. It also contains the order of the Mass in Latin and English.
 
Some of the wisdom in this book comes from Father Lasance himself, and a great deal comes from a large number of other sources.
 
The subtitle of this book is “Happiness in Goodness” which reflects the author’s central theme, that ours is basically an optimistic faith designed not to depress us but to bring us good cheer.
 
It was in that context, in a section called “Faith and Humor,” that the expression “Quid hoc ad aeternitatem?’’ appeared.
 
“Think of the countless occurrences that fret and annoy,’’ says the prayer book, “that drive a man into himself and shut up his outlook over the world which the good God has given him, that make him petty and irritable and sour—how they would go down before such a question, as rank weeds before a scythe; how they would be lost sight of, as a swarm of gnats becomes invisible under the full light of an unclouded noon!”
 
I took that argument seriously and have pretty much lived under its influence ever since, trying to weigh the trivial problems of daily life against the promise of life forever in the presence of God.
 
All right, the language and the imagery are kind of dated, and there are some instances in which the tone of “My Prayer-Book” may seem out of place in our time—an uncharitable view of Protestants, for example—but it is a compendium, and a tangible relic, of our unchanging faith, and I keep it close at hand so that I can thumb through its pages.
 
Father Lasance (1860-1946) was a prodigious figure. He was a diocesan priest in Ohio, serving as a curate and a chaplain until, at the age of 30, he was forced by illness to live as a semi-invalid.
 
But quid hoc ad aeternitatem? Father Lasance, instead of feeling sorry for himself, used the time he gained by being precluded from parish work to write 39 books which were translated into numerous languages and which sold in the millions of copies.
 
He accepted no compensation for his work, but asked that the revenue be given to charities and used to provide his books free of charge to those who couldn’t afford to buy them.
 

—For his devotional works, Fr. Lasance
was given a special blessing by Pope Pius XI on May 10, 1927.

Posted by RENEW | Filed under Reflections on the coming Sunday's Gospel | May 8, 2017 No Comments »

“Jesus said to his disciples: ‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be. Where I am going you know the way.’ Thomas said to him, ‘Master, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, then you will also know my Father. From now on you do know him and have seen him.’ Philip said to him, ‘Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, “Show us the Father”? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own. The Father who dwells in me is doing his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else, believe because of the works themselves. Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father’” (John 14:1-12).
 
This passage, a theological discourse, can be challenging to understand. In it, Jesus explains who he is and how he is related to God the Father. He teaches that his imminent and necessary departure should not be met with sadness, but rather that we, his disciples, should trust and find comfort in it. He assures us that through knowing him, we will know God the Father and be united with them someday soon.
 
We have all had experiences in which finding faith and trust has been difficult, and in this passage we see Thomas and Philip experiencing just that. Thomas does not want to believe in the reality that following Jesus means following him through his passion and death. Philip lacks the faith to understand that by knowing Jesus we know God the Father.
 
Life with God comes only through following Jesus through his death, and we need not doubt or be discouraged. Through belief and trust in Jesus and by living his message, we will return to the assurance of everlasting life with him. He has prepared a place for us.
 
– When have you found it difficult to trust and believe in Jesus’ message?
 
Adapted from Word on the Go, a downloadable resource from RENEW International.