There is an amusing story of the raw army recruit standing at attention on the drill field.  The drill instructor yells, “Forward, march!”  And the entire ranks begin to move, all except this one raw recruit.  He’s still standing at attention.  So the drill instructor strolls over to him and yells in his right ear, “Is this thing working?”  “Sir, yes, sir!”  Then the drill instructor walks around to the other ear and yells, “Is this thing working?”  “Sir, yes, sir!”  The soldier says.  “Then why didn’t you march when I gave the order?”  “Sir, I didn’t hear you call my name.”   Some of us are like that soldier, standing around waiting for God to call our names.  But the great commission given by Jesus, on the day of His Ascension, is a blanket order.  It has everyone’s name on it.  And you can be sure that the man in charge says, “Go! Make disciples! Teach!” 

 It is your mission and mine,

            A great story of love comes to us from our very own Saint Damien.  When Fr. Damien arrived in Molokai to assemble a prefabricated church for the lepers, he spent a few weeks sleeping out under the trees, because he was unable to cope with the stench in the hovels of the lepers.  He certainly wouldn’t dare preach to them about God’s love for them, as they saw it, that would be offensive.  But slowly he opened his heart to the grace of God which enabled him to see the suffering Jesus in them.  In no time, he was washing them, bandaging them, and burying them.  He came to love them, and, through him they came to believe that God loved them.  He smoked a pipe to counteract the stench, but he soon was passing the pipe around for others to have a smoke. He ate food with them in a common bowl, out of which they scooped the food with hands that had no fingers.  He caught the disease himself, and he was happy to be able to live and to die for them.  Thus, St. Damien followed Jesus’ commandment of love given in today’s gospel: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

            Jesus’ unconditional, forgiving, selfless, sacrificial love for us must be the criterion of our love for others.  The highest expression of this love is our willingness to lay down our lives as Jesus did, for people who don’t deserve it.  The goal and result of our abiding in love, in God, will be perfect joy.  Jesus calls us friends.  He tells us that he has chosen us, and that, we can ask the Father for anything.

 Happy Mother’s Day…to all of the Mothers of our parish community,

                Jesus uses His favorite image of the vine and the branches during his Last Supper discourse to help His disciples understand the closeness of their relationship with Him and the necessity of maintaining it.  They were not simply Rabbi and disciples.  Their lives were mutually dependent—as close as a vine and its branches.  In fact, in using this image, Jesus was explaining to them, and to us, what our relationship with Him should be like.  Jesus is speaking of our radical dependence on God for everything.  The vine to be fruitful has to be cut and pruned, but remains always attached to the vine or else it dies.  “As a branch cannot bear fruit by itself, but must remain part of the vine, neither can you, unless you remain in me.”  Often we do not like to admit our dependence but the fact remains we are constantly dependent on others for our daily existence. Almost everything that we have and use comes to us from somewhere and someone else’s efforts. Food, clothing, transportation, shelter, ordinary tools that we use in our daily lives…all come to us by the labor of others. 

                The hard part of today’s teaching is the pruning part…ouch!!! In our lives, as followers of Jesus, there is always something that needs to be cut out of our lives.  Those are the things that are contrary to the spirit of Jesus…that’s the first type of pruning that’s expected of us.  A second way of being pruned is the practice of self control over our evil inclinations, sinful addictions, and anything else that is contrary to His ways.  Don’t worry…Jesus is here to help us with the pruning.  He prunes, purifies and strengthens us by allowing us to face pain and suffering, contradictions and difficulties with courage, and faith, in our Christian convictions.  All of the New Testament scriptures emphasize the need for Christ’s followers to abide in Christ as a condition for producing fruits of kindness, mercy, charity and holiness.  I hope you were not expecting to produce wine!

 Just…one of the pruners,

Let us pray for vocations to the priestly and religious life so that we may have more holy and Spirit-filled shepherds to lead, feed, and protect the Catholic community.  Christian thinking on vocation has been summarized in one profound saying: “All are priests, some are priests, but only one is the Priest”.  Christ Jesus is the Priest  in the full sense because he is the one mediator between God and humanity who offered himself, a unique sacrifice on the cross.  The universal priesthood of all believers, the sharing of all the baptized in the priesthood of Christ, has received special emphasis since Vatican Council II.  Those who are called to make a lifelong commitment to serve as ordained ministers share the ministerial priesthood of Jesus…that includes myself and Deacon Fred.  On this World Day of Prayer for Vocations we are asked to encourage and pray for our young men top respond to God’s call to serve His Church in the ministerial priesthood. 

Please encourage someone that see or know from our parish.  This past weekend I learned that there are at least 4 young men considering entering the seminary and maybe 2 young women entering a Religious community of Sisters..all from one of our neighboring parishes.  What about us?  Ask or invite one of our young parishioners to consider such a vocation to serve the church and maybe they might be a Shepherd right here in our parish church.  Praying for vocations are one part of the equation…the other is to ask and encourage them to look into serving the church in these ways.

                                                Your humble shepherd,

                So…He is risen…now what?  Here are a few suggestions that we should consider:  #1- Share the Apostle’s “Upper Room Experience” in the context of our Mass.  The same Jesus who was in the upper room of the Cenacle, is present with us when we are celebrating the Mass.  #2-Jesus needs us as witnesses to continue his mission.  Jesus needs Spirit-filled followers to be His eyes, ears and hands and to bear witness to his love, mercy and forgiveness.  And, #3- Let our lives be the means of experiencing and sharing the Lord with others…in others…share the faith you have in the risen Lord with those are you.  There you have it…3 suggestions…don’t pick one of them…all are necessary if you are truly one of his Apostles.

Eastertime Blessings,