SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER – CYCLE C- 2013

      This Sunday is also called Divine Mercy Sunday since the Jubilee year 2000 when John Paul II introduced it in the universal calendar of the Church.    

      The Gospel reading takes us to the evening of the First Day of the week , the day of Jesus’ resurrection and also to the following Sunday when Jesus met   Thomas the Apostle, we will hear Jesus saying to him “Do not be unbelieving, but believe”    

FIRST READING – Act 5:12-16

As we already said last week, during the time of Easter the first reading is taken from the book of the Acts.  

Today’s reading describes the actions of the apostles, and also how the people looked at them.  

Ø  They did wonderful works; from the text we understand that those were works of healing. All of us look for healing of some sort, because we are vulnerable, limited and poor, and we do not want to suffer.    

Ø  They were in the Temple together in Solomon’s portico.  

Ø  Nobody dared to join them, this must mean when they were in the Temple   

Ø  Because as we continue the reading the authors says that many joined them. 

Ø  The people took their sick in mats and put them on the street, so that when Peter was passing by, at least his shadow might cover them to be healed.     

Ø  Like it happened during Jesus’ life time among us, people brought to him his sick so that they could be cured; now they do the same thing with his Vicar Peter who has received from Jesus the keys of the Church.   

RESPONSORIAL PSALM  Ps  118: 2-4; 13-15; 22-24

«  We continue to sing the same psalm we began on Easter Sunday 

«  This psalm is a hymn that sings the praises of God for his works   

«  This psalm is   a thanksgiving to the God of Israel, and we use it in our liturgy to sing the victory of Jesus over sin, hell, and death. 

GIVE THANKS TO THE LORD FOR HE IS GOOD, HIS LOVE IS EVERLASTING   

Let the house of Israel say

His love endures forever 

Let the house of Aaron say

His love endures forever.

Let those who fear the Lord say

His love endures forever   

I was hard pressed and was falling 

But the Lord helped me

My strength and my courage is the Lord

And he has been my savior.

There are  joyful shout of victory

In the tents of the just.

The stone which the builders rejected

Has become the cornerstone

By the Lord has this been done

It is wonderful in our eyes

This is the day the Lord has made

Let us be glad and rejoice in it.  

SECOND READING  Rev  l:9-11a. 12-13. 17-19

ü  The book of Revelation is also called Apocalypse. It is a revelation of the glorified Christ, Lord and King of kings.   

ü  The Gospels are books about Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, the Messiah during his earthly live among us.   

ü  The book of Revelation presents to us the Risen Jesus, the Christ of glory, Christ who is God, the Second Person of the Trinity.   

ü  This book does not speak about the future like the fortune-tellers or psychics do. But through images and different kinds of symbols the author wants to help us to understand the meaning of the events of our present historical time.   

ü  This is the reason to be called Revelation; this word means to draw aside the curtain.  Through the different chapters of this book written by our brother John, following God’s inspiration John draws the curtain so that we may see what is behind the events we see, and thus be able to understand their meaning.  

ü  I once read an author who said that this book is written to give hope to a suffering people. 

ü  And also that one of its messages, probably the most powerful is that “we find God in the midst of the events of history, not outside them.”  Let us reflect on this, and it will probably help us to grow in the faith that Jesus requires from Thomas: do not be unbelieving, but believe!  

LET US REFLECT ON THE MESSAGE FROM THE  SECOND READING.

      The author introduces himself as John, our brother, who shares with us the distress, the kingdom and the endurance we have in Jesus.   

       Because he has chosen to be faithful to Jesus, he is now in exile in the island of Patmos. (see the map below)   

       As he is  in exile he has a revelation of the Christ of glory. Jesus risen and glorified appears to John and speaks to him to give a message that he will have to transmit to his brothers. 

       This happens on a Sunday (the day of the Lord, Lord in Latin is Dominus; from this word comes the name of Sunday in Spanish.) This is the first time that we find the name of Sunday as the Day of the Lord,  in the New Testament.   

       Jesus has the appearance of a “son of man”, name which Jesus gave to himself so many times during his earthly life. This is a title given to a person in authority.  

      This son of man wears priestly garments, and is in the midst of seven gold lampstands, which are symbols of the Church.  In future Sundays we will explain in more detail the meaning of these seven gold  lampstands   

      John fells down terrified on seeing this majestic character, but Jesus touches him and says the words that he always said “do not be afraid”  

      And he continues explaining who he is:  

o   The First and the Last…   

o   The One who lives, who was dead and now he is alive forever    

o   He has the keys of death and life. Paul in one of his letters says “The Father has given him (Jesus) a name that is above every other name, so that every knee shall bend before him on the earth and under the earth…    

o   Christ orders John to write what he has seen and what he will continue to see.   

o   Next Sunday we will meet here again to continue contemplating  this beautiful book of Revelation 

 

In this picture we see  where the Island of Patmos is situated, and also the seven churches which the Lord will address in the second chapter of the book of Revelation. 

GOSPEL Jn 20:19-31

In the three liturgical cycles we read this same Gospel of John.   

«  It is the afternoon of the First Day of the Week, the afternoon of the resurrection of Jesus when his male disciples see him for the first time after his death on the cross.   

«  Jesus speaks to them and makes them the pillars of his Church  

o   First “peace,” so they may be able to give it in the same way that they have received it   

o   The “gift of the Holy Spirit.” For John it is always Jesus who gives the Holy Spirit, which is his Spirit: on the Cross and now in the Upper Room.   

o   The gift to forgive sins, which Jesus has joined to the reception of the Holy Spirit and to peace. 

«  Surely that all of them told Thomas that they had seen the Risen Lord. But Thomas is discouraged and does not believe, this is not possible, I have to see and touch before I can believe.  

«  Jesus comes eight days later and says to Thomas, put your finger in the wounds of my hands and  feet,  and your hand in the wound of my side. This was the condition that Thomas had put if he had to believe. 

«  And Jesus continues saying: 

o   To Thomas “do not be unbelieving, but believe!”   

o   And to all of us: “Happy those who have not seen and believe”  

«  And Thomas pronounces those so beautiful words that believers have repeated through the centuries: “My Lord and my God.”    

«  I have heard once a homily preached by a priest called Thomas, and he said that Thomas was called the twin, and the preacher asked “twin of whom” because the Gospels never speak of that twin brother of Thomas. And he continued saying he is twin of all of us who have difficulties in believing, in accepting the newness brought to us by Jesus, in changing what has always been done in some given way, those of us who become discouraged and many times think that there is nothing that we can change.  

«  At that moment is when anything can be possible, because we allow God to work in us.   

               

RINCON CLARETIANO

 

 

When we were buying the house for the monastery I suffered very much because the archbishop was then out of the city and the procurator got attracted to so a good a house that, for being so good, was not good for nuns, because a marble pavement does not fit the poor”sayal” (poor habit of rough cloth), and the house had been built for very refined people. I insisted in showing my disgust so that the house would not be bough because the Archbishop had told me, before he left for the visit, to buy a lot and the house would be build afterwards , and this was also my desire in order to make it according to the poverty God had told me. But, since the good Archbishop had placed all this business in the hands of the procurator (this detachment of the Archbishop made me suffer not slightly and this (the procurator) told me that the purchase was going to his account, I always understood that we had just to pay the dowry I had and that of my companion, leaving all the rest to the care of the procurator.. Venerable María Antonia París, Foundress of the Claretian Missionary Sisters, Autobiography 72. 

I am well aware that worldly people, who lack the spirit of Jesus Christ, ridicule or even condemn such mortifications; but I remember the teaching of St. John of the Cross concerning this. He says that if anyone tells you that you can be perfect without practicing external mortification, you should pay him no heed. Even if he worked miracles to confirm what he says, you should regard them as illusions. St. Anthony Mary  Claret, Founder of the Claretian Missionary Sisters, Autobiography 412.