4th Sunday of Easter B April 21, 2024

4th Sunday of Easter B

April 21, 2024

When I hear about the cornerstone that is rejected I receive an image of a singing frog.  Do you remember the Warner Brother’s cartoon One Froggy Night where the man finds a singing frog inside of the cornerstone of a building?  He takes the frog and puts him up on stage, but the frog will only sing for the man when they are alone.  He finally puts the frog in the cornerstone of a new building that is demolished in the future and the worker in the future thinks he will cash in on the singing frog.  We can guess that he will have the same issue that the frog will only sing for him when they are alone.

In the time of Jesus a cornerstone was a stone used to link two walls at right angles, thus holding up a significant part of the building’s weight.  If the rejected stone is used for this job it must have been rejected for a reason.  As in so many of his images, Jesus turns upside down our expectations. With God that which we think is the correct thing often is not. God uses the imperfect, the broken to advance the kingdom of God.

In the cartoon One Froggy Night a singing frog is certainly a foolish thing.  Sadly only one at a time can hear the foolish frog sing.   We don’t expect a frog to sing and dance, so we reject the possibility and fail to be delighted by the show.

St. Paul has referred to himself as a fool for Christ.  The gospel is often proclaimed by the foolish among us.

We began this month with April 1 being All Fools day. On this day it was ok to pull jokes and pranks on others.  Jokes and pranks work because they upset our expectations.  April fool’s day, Holy Thursday this year, was followed by Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday.  I am told that in the Russian Orthodox tradition is common to tell jokes on Easter Sunday since the resurrection is a joke on the devil.

Like a singing frog, the resurrection was unexpected and only  a few were able to see and understand what had happened. The truth of the resurrection takes time to unpack and to understand.

Foolish things may be foolish, but that does not mean they are unimportant.

In history it has been the fools who speak truth to power. Foolish ones are those who help us to see the absurd nature of life.

In the plays of Shakespeare the fool is the one who speaks truth to power.    In the history of the Russian church Holy Fools were held up as sacred persons.  The fool is the one who sees in a clearer way.  How often does a joke cut through all the posturing and get to the truth of the matter. 

God has used the fool to advance the kingdom of God. How many of the saints were considered foolish in the eyes of the world.  To embrace the gospel means to be out of step with the rest of the world.

The fool cares about things that and others when the world at large has given up on them.

In the gospel Jesus refers to himself as the good shepherd.  Anyone who has worked with sheep knows they are not the brightest of God’s animals, yet the shepherd cares for them.   Sheep are foolish animals.

 To care for sheep one must get to know them.  The shepherd gives them names and comes to know each one according to its ways of being.  The sheep come to recognize the voice of the shepherd.  Pope Francis has said that good Christians are shepherds who smell like the sheep. 

The shepherd risks life caring for these simple animals.  At night the sheep are gathered into an area with a wall around it and one way in and out. The shepherd completes the wall with his body and sleeps there so the sheep can’t leave and no intruders can get into the sheep fold.

In this season of Easter the joke is on the devil. Our God is the Good shepherd.  Our God loves us so much he was willing to become human, to lower himself to be a fool, a member of the flock. 

The stone rejected has become the cornerstone. The followers of Jesus were stones rejected. They were simple fishermen, fools in the eyes of the world. God used these fools to build the church that has lasted to today.  Peter was a fool who promised to stay with Jesus till death until he quickly denied knowing the man. Judas saw Jesus as a stumbling block to his grasp for power so he betrayed Jesus.  Paul saw the Christians as a problem to be eliminated so the sought them out and persecuted them, and on and on.  These fools became the cornerstone of the church.

We often see children as foolish for they see all as new and speak their minds readily. How much truth and humor comes out of the mouths of babes. St. John in his letter, the second reading from today’s mass, calls us blessed and children of a loving God. He reminds us that we have gone astray like sheep, but have now returned to God.

A singing Frog is a foolish thing for those who can’t hear him. The resurrection is a foolish thing for those who refuse to believe.  Sheep are foolish animals for those who refuse to know them. And our God is a foolish God loving us as we are as foolish children.

Thank God our God is so foolish. For our God loves us and in God’s wisdom we are saved from our foolish ways.

29th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

By Deacon Paul Cerosaletti • October 19, 2025
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25th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

By Deacon Paul Cerosaletti • September 21, 2025
Language scholars who have studied the origins of the word mammon in Hebrew and Aramaic have found clear association with words meaning wealth, riches, money, profit and possessions. But there is also evidence that one of the root words for mammon also means “that in which one trusts.” On all of our US currency — each coin and paper bill — is a simple (and, I suspect, often overlooked) phrase: “In God we trust.” This phrase was added during the Cold War to distinguish our currency, and nation, from that of the atheist Soviet Union. On each of our denominations of currency, both coins and paper bills, we have this simple reminder in whom we should be placing our trust in — God — and not what we should be placing it in: the fruit of our human activity, especially money. It is a poignant reminder to us today in light of the Gospel passage we hear and our current experience. This reminder begs us to ask two questions of ourselves and collectively as a country and society: Do we trust in God first? Always, everywhere, in everything? Or do we place our trust first in small-“g” god, or gods of human origin? In answering those questions, we might ask ourselves, what do our actions say about whether we place our trust first in God, or in humans? Where are we spending our time and treasure? This past month has brought us yet more tragic and traumatic reminders of our society’s misplaced trust. The recent spate of wounding and taking of innocent lives through gun violence in service of an ideology of retribution is just the most recent in a continuing human saga of such behavior, behavior that places trust in leading with human action to resolve differences, over our openness and trust in allowing God to lead us to a conversion of heart and to reconciliation. There is more that could be said about the responsible use of wealth in service to God. About detachment from ‘goods’ of this world — goods that God gives us out of love to draw us closer and more deeply into love with God, that we might revere God and God’s creation, but not take those goods in place of God. But in light of our continuing tragedies and the lack of reverence for human life, created by God in the image and likeness of God, of which they are clear evidence, the most important response we can offer is what St. Paul exhorts us to in his letter to Timothy, when he writes: First of all, I ask that supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings be offered for everyone, for kings and for all in authority, that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all devotion and dignity. This is good and pleasing to God our savior, who wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth. And so we will pray to God, as St Paul asks. Pray collectively for those who have suffered violence in all forms against humanity. We will pray collectively for those wounded, those who have lost their lives and their families. And then perhaps most difficult of all, we will pray for those who perpetrated this violence, and all who are tempted to perpetrate violence against humanity. We should be challenged in our prayers to pray for people we don’t want to pray for. We may find the heart that is converted is our own. In all these prayers we place our trust first and foremost in God, who desires to save us, and who “proves his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8). In this is our act of Faith. In this is our act of Hope.

Solemnity of Peter And Paul - June 29, 2025

By Fr. Chris Welch • July 1, 2025
Solemnity of Peter and Paul June 29, 2025 Peter and Paul are called the saints of Rome. Partly this is because, both died in the city. You may visit their burial places. The grave of St Peter is under the Basilica bearing his name and St. Paul is buried under the church of St. Paul outside the walls. (Being a Roman citizen Paul was buried outside the walls of Rome, while Peter was killed and buried in the city of Rome.) More about the churches later. Paul and Peter couldn’t be more different. It is said “God draws straight with crooked lines”. Why did God choose these men? A good question. It has been said “God doesn’t call the qualified, God qualifies the called.” Paul was a well-educated, Pharisee. An official of the temple. Paul spent his early career persecuting the followers of Jesus, until he met Jesus on the road to Damascus. Peter was a simple fisherman. He often said the wrong things and at times had flashes of insight, as in today’s gospel. Peter spent time with Jesus and denied knowing Jesus the night before his passion and death. Later Peter was asked 3 times “do you love me” by Jesus. Peter was the apostles to the Jews, while Paul was the apostle to the gentiles (the non-Jews). The Basilica of St. Peter is probably the most famous church in the city of Rome. For years it was thought that the church held the remains of St. Peter. This was confirmed in the 1940s when excavations took place to find more room to bury popes in the crypt of the building. Workers found and ancient cemetery under the church. Today we can take the tour, often given by seminarians from the North American College Seminary. Be sure to reserve the tour before you arrive in Rome. The tours are limited. At the end of the tour, you will come to the Marble box with the bones of St Peter in it. When the bones were tested, they were found to belong to a man from the first century. After Constantine made Catholicism the official faith of the republic, He constructed a simple church over the cemetery. Later it was added to and today it is the large church we know of as St Peter’s Basilica. You may visit the Constantine chapel in the crypt of the church to see where the first church was located. When I was on my sabbatical in Rome in 2008, I invited my family to visit me and I arranged to offer mass in the Clemintine chapel. After mass I noticed that one of the metal doors on the wall was open. We crawled in and went behind the altar to tough the marble box where the bones of St Peter were placed. What a thrill to be so close to the great saint’s remains. To visit the tomb of St Paul you need to travel outside of Rome to the church of St Paul outside the walls, most of the tour buses do not go here, so be carful which tour bus you take. The church is next to a monastery with a nice cloister garden. On the base of the dome are faces of the popes. Years ago, excavations took place, and the bones of St Paul were found in the base of the church. Today we honor the great saints of the early church. It is due to the preaching of St Paul that we the gentiles, non-Jews are here. A few months ago the successor to St. Peter was a man from our nation, Pope Leo the XIV. Let us give thanks for these great man and these great saints.