Peace be with you!

Join Fr. Freeh and parishioners Vicki Phillips and Pat Henry as they discuss the Apostles’ coming to terms with the Easter message.

After three years of following Jesus…the Apostles still didn’t get the meaning of His Passion and Death. They saw it as the end of His promise, not the beginning of its fulfillment.

This is kind of scary. The people who knew Jesus best still kept trying to fit Him inside their own agenda: throw off the Roman Empire, establish Israel in its stead.

The comforting part: Jesus still called them friends, still loved them, still accepted them when they returned in sorrow and repentance. (Both Judas and St. Peter betrayed Jesus. The difference between them is what they did about it afterwards.) He kept leading them toward His Father’s desire for them: an intimate relationship of love with God Himself. And finally, He died for them.

And–eventually–they understood the meaning of The Christ’s Passion, Death, and Resurrection: the unconditional Love of God. And when they got it…boy howdy.

In the readings for next Sunday, Simon the rough fisherman–who told Jesus to depart from him, a sinful man, in their first meeting–has become Peter. The former fisherman has to reassure the people he meets that he, too, is merely a human being. Just stop and think about that for a moment.

The Apostles had to give up their narrow, secular agendas to be transformed. So do we. We too must stop trying to jam Jesus into our agendas, justifying our desires, the choices we make, the moral relativism of our modern world. We must learn–as the Apostles did–to understand the gift of salvation as a transcendant and eternal act of Unconditional Love, and conform ourselves to His plan, not ours. In other words, we must follow Jesus’ example.

Just as the Son’s love for the Father led to His obedience even to death on the Cross, the more we love God, the more we are led to obey Him. In next Sunday’s reading, Jesus tells us:

“As the Father loves me, so I also love you.
Remain in my love.
If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love,
just as I have kept my Father’s commandments
and remain in his love.”

Let’s be clear. Our obedience to God isn’t rooted in manipulation and control: “If I obey God, then He will love me.” It’s not possible to buy something you already have…and God loves us, regardless of how we behave. 

God isn’t concerned about our obedience because of what it does for Him. His concern is what obedience does for us. We remain in God’s love. Obedience is part the Easter because Jesus tells us:

“I have told you this so that my joy may be in you
and your joy might be complete.”

Spiritual hindsight can see sharply across the millenia. We can–and should–rediscover the power of the love of God by meditating on the lives of the Apostles, learning from both their mistakes and triumphs.

Then we need to need to turn that spiritual lens on our own lives. We obey whatever we love most. If we’re disobedient to God, we need to look for the lesser god we’re obeying because we love it more–and the tragic consequences of worshipping a false god.

We can’t do this alone. This is why Jesus gave us the sacrament of Confession and the authentic teachings of the magisterium of the Church, to help us examine our lives in the light of His commands.

We’re not supposed to be go-along, get-along. We’re supposed to startle people with our love, our joy, our faithfulness. When we understand this the way the Apostles did…we too will light up the world.

Simply put: Disobedience walks with self-will and anger. Joy in the Love of God, and obedience to Him walk hand-in-hand. And the world follows after.

+ Ann

Readings for Sunday May 10, 2015