April 28, 2024 5th Sunday of Easter B

April 28, 2024

5 th Sunday of Easter B

Promise #3 of the 12-step movement is, “ We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.” These words come to mind when I hear about Saul in today’s first reading.

It must have been difficult to be accepted by the early Christians when he spent so much time in the recent past persecuting the Christians. Now he wishes to proclaim the gospel of Jesus.   Last Sunday we heard how the people piled their cloaks at the feet of a man named Saul as they killed Stephen.

Saul did horrible things in his past. I am sure many had a hard time overlooking what Saul did in the past. I am sure he had many sleepless nights when he regretted his past, yet his past is part of who he was and is. As he was strident in persecuting the Christians in the past, he was strident in preaching the good news in his present. His past is part of who he is. His nature didn’t change, what changed was his cause and his outlook on life.

We all have things in our past that we are not proud of. We all sowed some wild oats.  What we were is not the end of the story. God uses the most broken to accomplish the building up of the kingdom.  It is said, “every sinner has a future, and every Saint has a past.”  What we were in the past is not the whole story. Saul was a single-minded persecutor of the Christians who became a single-minded preacher of the gospel.  His way of operating has not changed, just what his goal is has changed.

Our past has formed each one of us into who we are. We can’t change the past, we may regret it, but we can’t change it. The best we can do is strive to do better in the future. It is often hard to put behind us our past. Some will judge us according to what we did in the past. Some will not see how we are different.

 It takes someone willing to see beyond our past and look to today and the future.

Barnabas did this for Saul. Barnabas was able to see the man who was there at the moment. He didn’t’ t let the past sway him. He was willing to take Saul at his word and trust that the spirit was at work in him and that he was a new man.

Today we may want to consider what is in our past that we wish to put behind us.  Who has been a Barnabus for us? Who was willing to give us the benefit of the doubt.

Who is a Saul for us in our life? Who are the ones who have a past? Are we willing to let them try on a new way of life, or do we prejudge them according to their past? Remember the saints, “Every sinner has a future, every saint has a past”.

I am not sure I would have liked Paul, but I am thankful for him and his ministry.  Without Paul, few of us would know about the gospel.

As Fr. Scott shared with us this week, each type of person has a sin; sin doesn’t’ t define the person. Our pet sin can be a deficit and an asset for the way we interact with the world. So, it was with Paul. He was, in his past, and after he met Jesus on the road to Damascus, a man with a mission.   He brought all he was and is to his mission to spread the gospel. 

Saul may have tried to get away from his past, he was even given a new name. A new name accompanies a new mission. Abram became Abraham, Saul became Paul. The pope takes on a new name Cardinal Bergoglio becomes Francis.

It must have been hard for Paul and the early church. There were many growth pains in the early church. The Holy Spirit came to help the disciples and apostles form the church. The church was and is made up of many who have a past. Our past is not the end of the story.  As broken as we may be, we are created in the image and likeness of our God.  Therefore, we are created and loved by our God and that makes all the difference in the world.

The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, Year A

By Rev. Christopher Welch • June 7, 2026
Once a year the church asks us to remember how important the Eucharist is to our faith life. Each year we pause and celebrate this feast, The Body and Blood of Christ. We are given the words of Moses on this feast. Moses said to the people: "Remember” and “Do not forget." He is speaking of the lessons learned in the desert, but he could be speaking about today’s feast. It is too easy to forget the gift of the Eucharist, how in our celebration at the Mass each week we become the body and blood of Christ. It is so easy to forget the importance of being a member of the body of Christ. Mass attendance and honoring the Sabbath is a good habit to nurture. Too often I hear from people who say to me, “I get nothing out of Mass.” This is the consumeristic attitude of our culture. The attitude that says something is worthwhile only if it is of benefit to me. I do not attend Mass simply for myself, but I attend Mass as a member of the body of Christ. It is so easy to forget that the body of Christ contains me and many other members. If I choose to exempt myself from the body of Christ, the body suffers. Those who say “I get nothing out of it” are unwilling to put anything into it. How often have I asked a person to tell the name of the person who they have sat next to for many years and they tell me I don’t know his/her name. How hard is it to introduce yourself to another? He/she is a member of the body of Christ. Each time we come to Mass, we have many opportunities to engage with the body of Christ. Before Mass begins, we have an opportunity to greet members of the body of Christ. As we pray the Mass, there are many opportunities for what the church calls “full and active participation”. When we sing the songs we pray twice, and the music makes our worship more joyful. As we respond to the prayers, we participate in the Mass. Each time we gather for Mass we gather as a part of the body of Christ. The priest or deacon may lead us in prayer, but we members of the body of Christ we are part of the prayer. Our participation is needed. In the liturgy of the Word we gather around the word of God as found in the scriptures, the psalms, and the words of Jesus in the gospels. In the liturgy of the Eucharist, we hear the words of Jesus at the Last Supper. The prayers of the priest and the congregation allow the bread and wine to become the body and blood of Christ. As the congregation comes forward, as the body of Christ, we receive the body of Christ. The time we spend in church is time well spent as we go forth to bring the body of Christ to others during our week. At the end of each Mass, we are instructed to take what we have received and bring it to others. Our weekly participation in the Body and Blood of Christ helps to remember who we are and helps us to nurture well the body of Christ we meet in our daily lives.

Trinity Sunday, Year A

By Rev. Christopher Welch • May 31, 2026
The passage we are given from John’s Gospel says, "God so loved the world…" I would rewrite it as, "God so loved me ….” I often find myself wondering how God could love me so much. How can God love me so much and each other person so much. There are so many people God has loved into being. So many people loved by our God. There are times I do not feel so loveable. Yet our faith reminds us that God loves each one of us. There are many people I do not know or am not sure I like but I am reminded that, like me, they are created in the image and likeness of a loving God. The feast we celebrate today is a feast of love. The love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. An ancient image given to us by the Eastern fathers speaks of the Trinity as a dance among the three persons. The dance is a circular dance with each one of us invited to join in the dance. This is a dance of love that includes each one of us. The hand of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit reaches out to us in love, inviting us to join in the dance. This is how Barbara Reid describes the dance: The dance is an open circle that invites all onto the dance floor, drawing them right into the midst of the energetic flow of divine delight. If some hesitate, preferring to sit on the sidelines, the Three-in-One circle back again, extending the invitation over and over to each and to all, changing the pace and the rhythm, so that even the most clumsy of us can learn the steps in the dance of divine love. Paul suggests some practice steps for the dance: rejoice, mend your ways, encourage one another, seek agreement, live in peace, greet one another with a holy kiss. In these ways, we help one another onto the dance floor, where we become one with the very source of grace, love, and communion. (1) The divine dance reminds me of the song of the Mock Turtle in Alice in Wonderland: Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance? Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you join the dance? (1) Barbara E. Reid, O.P., "A Dance of Love". America Magazine, June 6, 2011.

Fourth Sunday of Easter, Year A

By Rev. Christopher Welch • April 26, 2026
When C.S. Lewis wrote The Chronicles of Narnia , he wrote The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe first. In the old order this was the first book in the series. Today The Magician's Nephew is placed first, since it tells of the creation of Narnia by Aslan. In The Magician's Nephew we met Digory, who meets Aslan for the first time. Digory’s mom is ill and Aslan tells him about a fruit that may heal her. It is found in a walled garden. Jadis the White Witch also wants the fruit. She climbs over the wall to get it. The fruit gives her eternal life, but hers is a life of despair and hurt. She acquired the fruit by climbing over the wall; as in today’s Gospel, she is a thief. She did not enter through the sheep gate. The Tree of Youth (also, the Tree of Life) was the first, largest, and most spectacular Silver Apple Tree in existence. It grew at the very centre of the Garden of Youth, and bore shining, silver apples that had wonderful, powerful magical properties, and gave off an ethereal, breathtaking, almost irresistible smell. The tree was enclosed within the Garden, and roosting in its branches was a single Phoenix (and the only one ever seen in Narnia). Though the apples were silvery and incredibly beautiful, their juice was darker than one would expect. The first person to eat the Apples of Youth was Jadis who, dismissing the written warning that the fruits should only be plucked to help others, and not to be eaten for oneself, climbed into the Garden over the wall, and plucked a fruit for herself. After she had greedily eaten the fruit, Jadis claimed that she felt such changes within her that she knew that she would never grow old or die. When Digory spotted her throwing away the core of the apple she had eaten, and saw how the dark juice stained her mouth horribly, he guessed - rightly - how she had entered the Garden, and thought he understood what the last line: For those who steal or those who climb my wall, shall find their heart's desire and find despair meant, for, despite the fact that Jadis looked "stronger and prouder than ever, and even, in a way, triumphant", her face was "deadly white, as white as salt". Presumably ignorant of what she had doomed herself to, Jadis tried twice to tempt Digory into disobeying Aslan: first, by encouraging him to eat the fruit himself, telling him that it would make him alive and young forever. Second, telling him to give the fruit to his ill, dying mother instead, assuring him that it would cure her of her illness. Digory, very fortunately for him and his mother, was able to resist both temptations, and even angrily rebuffed Jadis, who retorted by calling him a fool to throw away his one and only chance of endless youth. When Jadis began to feel the dark and cold inside her, she fled from the Western Wild, to the far north, to presumably begin creating her army. However, as Aslan said, it was actually Jadis, not Digory, who was a fool, given that the fruit would never work happily for any who pluck it at their own will, and that "length of days with an evil heart is only length of misery, and already she begins to know it" - Jadis' immortality meant that the misery that constantly plagued her because of her dark, evil heart would never end. Digory, by resisting the two devastating temptations, actually saved himself and his mother from terrible fates that would have definitely befell them if he had succumbed to either one of the temptations. When Digory returned to Aslan with the Apple of Youth, Aslan told him to throw it on the bank of the Great River of Narnia, where it grew into the Tree of Protection that protected the Kingdom of Narnia from all enemies for 898 years. In just a matter of days the tree along with the rest of the garden presumably disappeared into Aslan's Country. (1) There is a warning posted on the wall of the garden: Come in by the gold gates or not at all, Take of my fruit for others or forbear, For those who steal or those who climb my wall Shall find their heart’s desire and find despair. (2) The witch did not enter by the gates. She used the fruit for herself and will spend her days in despair. Those of us who enter through the sheep gate via the waters of baptism use the fruits of the Holy Spirit to help others. They are not for our use. Many will testify that what we do for others comes back to us in abundance. On this “Good Shepherd Sunday", we enter through the sheep gate and we share what we have found with others. Each time a person is baptized in this space, we gather as a community to help that person in his/her journey as a member of the body of Christ. We come not as thieves; we enter through the sheepgate and, in doing so, we find immortal life and joy and not immortal life and despair as did Jadis the witch. (1) https://narnia.fandom.com/wiki/Tree_of_Youth (2) The Magician's Nephew (1955), page 185