Firstly, I have to say that it is a blessing to be Catholic and to see the continuity of our faith stretching all the way back to the Apostles. We have been hearing about the preaching and ministry of St. Peter a lot in our readings from the Acts of the Apostles during this Easter season. What a joy and thrill it was to see a son of our own country chosen to take on that office of St. Peter as Pope! Today in the Vatican, the inaugural Mass for Pope Leo has already happened! God bless Pope Leo XIV and give him all the strength he needs to lead us all as the new chief shepherd of the Church Jesus founded. The Holy Spirit is definitely still at work in the church! What a surprise He gave us all just a little over a week ago.
Again, let us listen to those powerful, inspired words from the Acts of the Apostles describing the work of the Holy Spirit through Ss. Paul and Barnabas in the Early Church: “They appointed elders for them in each church and, with prayer and fasting, commended them to the Lord
in whom they had put their faith.” Already in the Early Church, we can see the Spirit inspiring Paul and the other Apostles to set up structures of leadership in the Church and to prayerfully appoint people to care for these churches that were springing up. This weekend, the Church in Columbus did exactly this. We gathered with a huge, standing room only crowd at St. Paul Church in Westerville to witness the joy of three young men courageously and joyfully laying their lives down as they were ordained priests for the diocese of Columbus by Bishop Fernandes.
I am always moved by the sight of men giving their lives to the Lord and being ordained. It reminds me of the joy of that day almost ten years ago when my nose hit the floor in that same church as I offered myself in service to the Church and was ordained. What an enormous blessing that has been and a true joy to share these last years with all of you. I look forward to marking the occasion of my ordination anniversary with all of you on the 30th.
This Sunday my mind went to The Sandlot, one of my favorite movies of all time, as I pondered the readings the Church has given us for this fifth Sunday in Easter. I named Benny after the character of Benny “the Jet” Rodriguez in that movie. But I wasn’t thinking about Benny but the main character in the movie, Smalls. He spends the entire plot of the movie with his friends trying to rescue a Babe Ruth signed baseball from the grips of a huge dog known as The Beast. Not knowing the significance of Babe Ruth, Smalls hit the ball over the fence in the back of the Sandlot into the yard of the Beast. For most of the movie, we see that dog through the eyes of the children. The Beast is introduced to us as a type of mythical creature, an unstoppable force bent on killing whatever happens to come over his fence.
But then an interesting thing happens. After a prolonged chase sequence where the Beast pursues the boys all over town once they have gotten the ball back, the Beast becomes trapped underneath a fallen fence. All of a sudden, the roles are reversed. The Beast lies there beneath the fence whimpering softly, with all the boys looking on in stunned silence.
While the others stand frozen, Smalls jumps into action and tries to help the poor dog. He strains with the fence, trying in vain to lift it. Smalls begs the other boys to help him, telling them: “C’mon guys, help me. Please!”
But they hang back, so Smalls turns to Benny, “Benny, Benny, help me please, he’s hurt. C’mon I can’t lift it.” Finally, with the help of his friend Benny, they free the Beast, who comes right up to Smalls and gives him a huge, slobbery kiss. Shortly after this, they all learn the Beast’s real name: Hercules.
I love that scene because it so beautifully shows us the heart of Smalls, this kid whose first instinct when he sees their supposed mortal enemy in pain is to jump in immediately and help him. That quickness to love and serve is something that can and should resonate in all of our hearts. It is what the Lord commands us to do in the Gospel we just heard.
This Sunday we get to join Jesus and His Apostles around the table of the Last Supper and ponder the great commandment that Jesus gives the Apostles and all of us to fulfill:
“I give you a new commandment: love one another.
As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.
This is how all will know that you are my disciples,
if you have love for one another.”
Jesus commands them and us to be people who look at His all-consuming love on the Cross and make that decision to cooperate with the Grace He gives so that we can live in that love. It is a new commandment, because before Jesus, nobody had ever seen God’s love so clearly. By taking on our humanity and taking it through the Cross to the Resurrection, Jesus has made a way for us to live in the very love of God, to participate in His loving action on the Cross and thus continue to make that death-defeating love of His present to the world. His love is the type of love that changes us. It washes us clean so that we can be the ones about Whom the Lord will say, as we hear in the book of Revelation: “Behold, I make all things new.”
The task for us is to live in that newness that Jesus offers us, to be prompt in leaning into His love with all of those we meet in life: in our families, at work, at school and even strangers. The Lord calls us to love which allows people to encounter the Cross. From the Cross flows the Love which makes all things new. When we choose to live in that love, we can be the instrument of bringing the newness of a life free from sin and death to more and more people.
The truth is, we all were like the Beast at some point in our lives. In our sin and brokenness, we were those people who were estranged from God, even enemies of God. But the Lord Jesus, in his Divine Mercy, came to us and lifted off that burden of sin, and gave us a new start, like Small lifting the fence off of the Beast. We celebrate that newness of life that Jesus’ grace brings all throughout this Easter Season. We praise Jesus that in His mercy, He has reached out to us, clasping our hearts to make them new again. When we live in that kind of love and mercy that Jesus offers us, we become conduits of that life for others. A bet each of us can think of some people in our own lives who are like the Beast. What would it look like if today we approached them keeping the words of our Savior in mind?
As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.
This is how all will know that you are my disciples,
if you have love for one another.”
+ Heavenly Father, thank you for giving us such a beautiful Savior in Your Beloved Son. Lord Jesus, help us to participate more fully in the love of your Sacred Heart. Holy Spirit, inspire us to acts of love towards those who are most in need around us. We ask this through Christ, our risen Lord. Amen. +