New Members: On Easter Vigil, Karis, Whitney, and Logan were baptized into our community. Welcome and congratulations to the Weiland family!
Canon Law: Next week I will be attending a canon law convention in Yakima, Washington.
Potluck Sundays: When there are 31 days in the month, the last Sunday of that month we will have a potluck after Mass. Please mark your calendars and plan to bring your favorite dish! Next scheduled potluck will be May 30th.
Youth Visit: July 5th through 9th twelve anchorage youth will hold a retreat at Holy Rosary. We need some ideas for community service. Please think this over and get back to me. The tentative schedule is as follows:
Monday: Settle in, work around Holy Rosary, Dillingham tour, subsistence net.
Tuesday: Adoration, Mass at Holy Rosary, Community Service Day
Wednesday: Mass at Holy Rosary, Fly out to Clarks Point and Ekuk
Thursday: Adoration, Mass (Sr. Center), Singing (Grandma’s), Tour Peter Pan, Potluck, bonfire
Friday: Confession, Adoration, Mass at the Lake
Bishop Visit: The Archbishop will be visiting in Bristol Bay. During his visit he will go to Saint Theresa and Holy Rosary to administer the sacraments of Confirmation and Marriage. He will be here from June 9 through June 11. Stay tuned for more detail.
Easter Vigil: Thank you to all who helped with the Easter Vigil celebration. This is the holiest Mass of the year. We are blessed to have so many members in our community actively involved. Thank you for making this day so wonderful!
Gospel: PLEASE SEE GOSPEL BELOW. The story of doubting Thomas is a great story. It is about our faith and it is about peace.
Shower Complete: The shower in the church basement is not complete.
Have a fantastic week and see you Sunday...Fr. Scott
Homily for Sencond Sunday of Easter
2nd Easter Sun C Benedict 2010 Peace, Acts 5:12-16; Revelation 1:9-13, 17-19; John 20:19-31
In the gospel, Jesus says, “Peace be with you.” I don’t think Doubting Thomas has much peace until he met Jesus. Peace is something we all strive for. A rose wheel represents peace. One famous Rose Window in Paris is known as the Wheel of Fortune.
The Wheel of Fortune shows a circle with a King at the top (I am reigning). To the right side it shows the king loosing his crown (I have reigned). At the bottom the upside down King’s crown is off (I have lost everything). Then at the left side it says (I shall reign again). What the wheel shows is that life is a continual circle of being on top, dropping to the bottom, and then fighting our way back to the top again…Kind of scary isn’t it?
But right in the middle of the Wheel is a picture of Christ. The soul becomes peaceful and beautiful with Christ as the center.
Since God made all humans, we all start out with Christ as our center…we are hotwired. When something other is the center…possessions, drugs, power…the soul becomes a disharmony…we are hotwired for Christ, yet we want something else.
When a soul looses Christ as center, it becomes scattered. A scattered soul follows this idea, that idea, this guru, that guru, this impulse and that impulse.
That is what Diablo, or Devil means…to scatter…to break apart. People who are scattered and unfocused do not have Christ as center. They are not at peace.
Being scattered and unfocused means that we are on that outer rim of the wheel of fortune. We got on top of the wheel, and we need more and more to stay on top. But inevitably, we fall. When money is our center…when power is our center…it is addictive…we need more and more. We are never at peace.
Jesus as our center is the alternative. Jesus gathers, brings into one. Those who have Jesus as center can let themselves be detached from the world.
Notice that the center of a wheel does not change. It stays anchored. That is where the peace comes from. A person with Jesus as centered can be involved, but detached, from the Wheel of Fortune. We are able to weather the ups and downs of life. Why, because with Jesus as center, we are focused on one thing. We are not scattered. We are anchored firmly in place. As the Wheel turns, we stay calm and peaceful.
Remember when Jesus is asleep in the boat. The apostles eventually woke him up and he calmed the sea.
This story is about our lives. Peter is crossing the lake in a boat like we are crossing threw life. We go threw storms in life like Peter went threw the storm. Everyone knows that life kicks up storms of failures, lost relationships, physical pain, fear of death, Jesus during the storm, is asleep while everyone else is terrified.
Saint Augustine said, “Christ asleep in the boat is the Christ that you allowed to go to sleep in you. As you are about the many things, the being scattered, you have allowed your link to the center to be lost. When Jesus is asleep, of coarse you are lost, you are flailing about…Augustine says, “wake him up!”
Jesus as our center allows us to participate in the wheel of life, but peacefully watch it go around. Remember the Beattles and John Lennon? (John Lennon wrote the song “Help” and “I am Just sitting here watching the wheel go round and round.”
Jesus as center is a place of safety in the storm. Jesus as center is a place we can go and be safe from anything the world can throw at us. Find that key to the castle door. Wake Jesus up. “May the Peace of Christ be with you all” (641 Words).
Acts 5:12-16
Many signs and wonders were done among the people at the hands of the apostles. They were all together in Solomon's portico. None of the others dared to join them, but the people esteemed them. Yet more than ever, believers in the Lord, great numbers of men and women, were added to them. Thus they even carried the sick out into the streets and laid them on cots and mats so that when Peter came by, at least his shadow might fall on one or another of them. A large number of people from the towns in the vicinity of Jerusalem also gathered, bringing the sick and those disturbed by unclean spirits, and they were all cured.
Revelation 1:9-13, 17-19
I, John, your brother, who share with you the distress, the kingdom, and the endurance we have in Jesus, found myself on the island called Patmos because I proclaimed God's word and gave testimony to Jesus. I was caught up in spirit on the Lord's day and heard behind me a voice as loud as a trumpet, which said, "Write on a scroll what you see and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea." Then I turned to see whose voice it was that spoke to me, and when I turned, I saw seven gold lamp stands and in the midst of the lamp stands one like a son of man, wearing an ankle-length robe, with a gold sash around his chest. When I caught sight of him, I fell down at his feet as though dead. He touched me with his right hand and said, "Do not be afraid. I am the first and the last, the one who lives. Once I was dead, but now I am alive forever and ever. I hold the keys to death and the netherworld. Write down, therefore, what you have seen, and what is happening, and what will happen afterwards.
John 20:19-31
On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, "Peace be with you." When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. (Jesus) said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained." Thomas, called Didymus, one of the Twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples said to him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nailmarks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe." Now a week later his disciples were again inside and Thomas was with them. Jesus came, although the doors were locked, and stood in their midst and said, "Peace be with you. "Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe." Thomas answered and said to him, "My Lord and my God!" Jesus said to him, "Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed." Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of (his) disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written that you may (come to) believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name.
No comments:
Post a Comment