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.

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

By Rev. Christopher Welch • July 31, 2026
The gospel begins with the words: When Jesus heard of the death of John the Baptist.... John is Jesus’ cousin; John is the one who leaped in his mother's womb when he met Jesus in his mother’s womb. John is the one who baptized Jesus and now Jesus hears that John is dead by being beheaded. Jesus is in grief and wants to be alone. We are told that in his grief, Jesus went off to be alone. Word gets out where Jesus is and all the people show up looking for him to heal and feed them. We are told that Jesus’ heart is full of compassion for the people. Rather than telling them to go away, to let him be, he heals them. This is the life of a disciple – people are not in need on my schedule. When people show up, I need to attend to them. We can never do ministry with our eye on the clock. Although he was tired and in grief, Jesus cared for the people. He knew he could not be there always and his disciples would need to help out. When the disciples tell Jesus the people are hungry, the disciples were the hungry ones. Jesus tells them to give them something yourselves. This is Jesus’ way of calling them to act as disciples. I have fed them with my words; if they need food for their bodies, give it to them yourselves. The disciples find five loaves and two fish. Jesus offers a prayer. Jesus gives thanks for what has been provided, an action of gratitude. He then gives them to the disciples to distribute. Jesus is asking them to continue his ministry by feeding the people. What is left over fills 12 baskets; the number 12 reminds us of the 12 tribes. Jesus has come to feed the whole world. Jesus provides the feast and we as disciples share what we have been given with others. The five loaves and two fish are enough to feed the crowd and provide many leftovers. Our God is a God of abundance. What God has provided is not wasted and what God has provided is given to us by disciples who participate in God’s work. If we are to be disciples, we need to learn how to feed others. Like Jesus, we may find that being a disciple interrupts our life. When someone is in need we attend, we put aside our own agenda for a time and attend to the person in need. Our grief may come later after we care for the person in need. Those who were fed echo the words of Isaiah in the first reading. They come and are fed body and soul. The feeding of the soul are the words of Jesus and the feeding of the body comes from the hands of the disciples.

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

By Rev. Christopher Welch • July 26, 2026
For many old movie buffs, the movie King Solomon's Mines is a classic. Our first reading tells the story of King Solomon and his prayer for wisdom. “For the treasures of his heart, not his mines, Solomon is rightly remembered.” The parables speak of searching for treasure; for us the treasure is our relationship with God. The one who found the treasure in the field sells all he has to buy the field. The merchant searching for pearls sells all when he finds one that is perfect. Today we are asked to consider: What is my treasure? What is my pearl of great price? What is so important I would sell all I have to possess it? In the parables Jesus is speaking about the kingdom of God. What is more important to us than the kingdom of God? What would I sell to possess the kingdom of God? I am reminded of a story by Fr. Anthony DeMello, a priest from India: When a holy man reached the outskirts of the village and settled under a tree for the night, a villager came running up to him and said, “The stone! The stone! Give me the precious stone!” “What stone?” asked the holy man. “Last night Lord Shiva told me in a dream that if I went to the outskirts of the village at dusk, a holy man would give me a stone that would make me rich forever.” The holy man rummaged in his sack and, pulling out a stone, he said, “He probably meant this one. I found it in the forest yesterday. Here, it’s yours if you want it.” The man gazed at the stone in wonder. It was the largest diamond in the world – the size of a man’s head. All night he tossed about in bed. At break of day he woke the holy man and said, “Give me the wealth that makes it possible for you to give this stone away.” The kingdom of God is not something we possess, but something we seek for and when we find it, we share it with others.

Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

By Deacon Paul Cerosaletti • July 19, 2026
There is a 16-acre field that stretches up behind my house on what used to be my father’s farm. This spring, the farmer that rents that field planted a “new seeding” of alfalfa haycrop, rotating it out of corn production from the previous year. He tilled the soil, carefully incorporating the remains of the previous corn crop, making the ground level. He then rolled it with a large smooth roller to smooth the ground, push down the stones and make a firm seedbed. He seeded the alfalfa, and then rolled the ground again, making sure there was good seed-soil contact, to ensure the alfalfa, which too is the smallest of seeds, would germinate. Then he left the field. And waited. And hoped. And trusted. For the planting of seed is an act of faith.  That field of newly seeded alfalfa behind my house sprang up with great vigor in May and early June. It looked wonderful — a solid stand. The rain in the third week of June benefited the crop as it was getting dry, but brought with it as well a flush of an unwanted crop — weeds! This farming reality mirrors Jesus’s reminder in the parable that with the good seed of God sown and growing, there will always be weeds of the world — be they people, places, or things — that will compete with the growth of God’s Kingdom. In perhaps a surprising twist in the parable, the farmer instructs the laborers not to pull the weeds, lest they uproot the good crop as well. This is an exhortation to trust and patience in the action of God. While weeds can be devastating to a crop, in the Kingdom of God, it's important to remember that these weeds were once sown as good seed. St. Isadore of Pelusium, a fifth-century Desert Father of the Church, taught that God, the Master of the Harvest, is patient , and the weeds are not to be immediately pulled and burned, in order to give time for us to repent and mend our ways, that we might become good grain again. What? Weeds turned into good grain? Impossible, we think? But St. Isadore reminds us, lest we forget, of the striking examples of St. Peter and St. Paul, who strayed in sin, and yet with God’s grace and repentance went on to yield good and abundant fruit. Indeed, this is the story of so many of the saints! Thanks be to God for a merciful Father who “[gives] his children good ground for hope that [he] would permit repentance for [our] sins” (Wis 12:19b) — giving us a chance to become good grain again! One more thing about that field of newly-seeded alfalfa that became full of weeds. It was what we would term a “clear seeding”, which is a seeding solely of the intended principal crop (alfalfa in this case). There is another strategy that farmers employ to manage weeds in a new seeding, which is to plant them with another intended crop, usually a small grain like oats or barley. We call this other crop a companion crop . The companion springs up early and outcompetes the weeds, holding them at bay. Yet, due to its narrow but tall stature, it allows light down into the canopy to nurture the alfalfa. The result is two intended crops that thrive, helping each other yield a valuable and bountiful harvest. This agricultural practice reminds us that we are never Christians in isolation, but are indeed Christians in communion — companions that help each other on the journey towards the eternal harvest. That journey is the journey of holiness. The Church teaches that we are all called to holiness. That is our ultimate state of being for which we each are created. God sows us as companion crops for each other that we might help each other to grow in holiness, helping each other along the way by example and by deeds of love, kindness, and mercy, which sometimes include fraternal correction. Deeds which sometimes are the smallest of seeds, but grow to have the greatest of effect on each other. When we help each other grow in holiness, we fill the world with companion crops, keeping the weeds of the world at bay.