The Catholic Leader - 7 May

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The Catholic Leader, May 7, 2017
Your Daily Bread
SAINTLY LIFE
Sts Nereus and Achilleus
NEREUS and Achilleus were martyrs
in the first century.
An account of the lives of the two
says they were soldiers in the Roman
army and that they helped carry out
the persecution of Christians.
It is thought that they were follow-
ing orders in fear for their own lives.
It is also reported that they were
converted to Christianity by a “miracle
of faith”.
After this miracle, they discarded
their weapons and escaped.
Knowing full well what they were in
for, they proceeded to martyrdom for
their new faith.
Some accounts say that these two
soldiers may have been baptised by
St Peter.
The Church has honoured them as
martyrs since the fourth century.
Their feast day is on May 12.
Fifth Sunday of Easter
May 18
First Reading: Acts 6:1-7
Second Reading: 1 Peter 2:4-9
Gospel: John 14:1-12
Fourth Sunday of Easter
May 7
First Reading: Acts 2:14a, 36-41
Second Reading: 1 Peter 2:20b-25
Gospel: John 10:1-10
NEXT Sunday’s Gospel Reading, the
Fifth Sunday of Easter, is from the Gospel
of John, as it is throughout all the Sundays
of Easter Time.
Many people have come to realise
John’s Gospel is a profound meditation on
the person of Jesus.
In this Gospel, Christians of the First
Century share with us their faith in Jesus,
how they experience him in their lives as
the risen and cosmic Christ.
They share with us in an imaginative
way how they believed and understood
the uniquely intimate relation of Jesus to
God, the one whom he called the Father.
This is especially true of the 12 verses
that begin the 14th chapter of John’s Gos-
pel that we will read next Sunday.
Jesus is talking in a familiar way with his
disciples after he has shared his last meal
with them, on the night before he died a
terrible death by crucifixion.
Jesus shares from his heart his own
deep faith relation with God and his fore-
boding for the future.
“Do not let your hearts be troubled.”
Never let anxiety or fear fill your hearts.
You believe in God, continue to believe
in me, no matter what happens to me.
Five searching questions punctuate the
conversation that follows, some from his
disciples, some from Jesus himself.
Question One. Jesus asks his disciples
how he could have told them that he is
going to prepare places for them all, if
there were not different places for them all
in his Father’s house, in God’s dwelling?
Question Two. Jesus says his disciples
know the way to where he is going, but
Thomas asks how, when they do not know
where Jesus is going.
The reply of Jesus to Thomas is pro-
found: I am the way.
A way of truth and life, the only way to
God, the way Jesus lives.
Truth in the Hebrew sense – fidelity.
God’s fidelity to Jesus and Jesus’ fidelity
to God.
Life, a life that is love! God’s love for
Jesus and Jesus’ love for God.
Question Three. Philip asks Jesus to
show them God, but Jesus asks Philip how
after all the time he has been with Jesus
he does not really know Jesus.
Jesus – a human being totally open to
God, filled with the divine reality of God’s
faithful love for the world and for every
single person.
We come to know Jesus only by living
as he lived his humanity.
Question Four. Jesus asks Philip how
he can ask for Jesus to show them the
Father?
Jesus himself is the human face of the
Father.
Question Five is the most challenging
of all.
Do you, my disciples, believe that I live
and act in God and God lives and acts in
me?
We believe in Jesus, now a risen and
cosmic Christ with God, only when we
live this mystery in ourselves, doing what
Jesus did, and even more.
The Catholic Leader’s contributor Jesuit
Father John Reilly died on March 15. This
commentary on the readings was written in
2014.
Next Sunday’s readings By Fr John Reilly SJ
Friday - Sts Nereus and Achilleus
Roman soldiers martyred in first century
Saturday - Our Lady of Fatima
Mary appeared to three children in 1917
FEAST DAYS THIS WEEK
Great
man: St
Athanasius
the Great,
painting by
the Cretan
School.
Kate Gilday is a student at
the University of Queens-
land.
by kate gilday
Skype, eye contact and the gaze of Christ
HUDDLED in a sodden tent with
my best friend’s family, wind howl-
ing like a ravenous dog on the shore-
line, I was pretty sure I’d never see
my parents again.
At age nine, I hadn’t yet realised that rain
doesn’t cause tsunamis, and so it only took about
four seconds for the first bolt of lightning across
the sea to convince me that this camping trip
would end in certain death.
The more terrifying thing, though – the thing
that made my blood run cold – was that I had
forgotten what my parents looked like.
After a mere two days away from home, I was
drawing a blank – how did Dad smile? What
colour were Mum’s eyes again?
Miraculously, I had packed a photo, and it was
this I clung to as I fell asleep, reassured that,
should I perish before morning, I had at least
seen their faces one last time.
We survived the saturated camping trip. But
it wasn’t the last time I felt my blood chill at
the thought that I couldn’t remember what my
parents looked like.
Now living overseas for the fourth year in a
row, I’m grateful for the technologies my parents
and I rely on: digital photo albums stretching
from my childhood to this Christmas; easy ac-
cess to Skype and Facetime.
But there’s still a barrier – the stagnancy of the
photos, the indirectness of eye contact through a
webcam.
There’s an extent to which, like the photo I
clung to on a stormy night in 2006, they can
never serve the same purpose as the real faces of
the ones I love.
Eye contact confirms our humanity.
We acknowledge that others exist when we
meet their eyes.
We connect with them, perhaps even at the
level of empathy or intimacy.
Rehearsing for the Sound of Music in Year 12,
the director forced my co-actor and me to spend
10 minutes in unflinching eye contact until we
stopped giggling at how awkward we felt.
Eye contact links souls.
Is it any wonder, then, that the Gospels repeat-
edly draw our attention to Jesus’ eyes?
From “Jesus looked at him and loved him,”
(Mark 10:21) to “Jesus turned and saw her,”
(Matthew 9:22) to “Jesus looked intently at
them” (Luke 20:17) we have the chance to jour-
ney with an observant, present God.
He looks, and sees, and meets our gaze.
He confirms the dignity of our humanity, and
connects intimately with it.
For me, the eye contact of Christ remains one
of the most compelling aspects of the Incarna-
tion.
As much as a Skype date with or crumpled
photo of a loved one appeases something of the
need for human contact within us, it cannot rival
the intimate connection we discover with some-
one who, in the flesh, gazes upon us with love.
It’s why Eucharistic Adoration is so powerful:
we look at Him looking at us, loving us.
It’s why I love reading through the Gospels
with the specific intention of tracing Jesus’ eye
contact: we see that he sees us.
And we see how he sees others.
If we spend our lives relying on spiritual pho-
tographs – foggy memories of that time we gave
our life to Jesus, or “caricature-ish” notions of a
God who can’t really journey intimately with us
– we deny ourselves the fullness of relationship.
My parents visited a few weeks ago, and I
caught myself from time to time just watching
them as they moved around a room.
They were really there (three-dimensional and
everything!), and they were captivating.
On those days when God’s feeling a bit
distant, don’t settle for Skype – go be with Him
face-to-face.
Eye contact reminds us of His three-dimen-
sional love.
Contact: “Eye contact confirms our humanity. We acknowledge that others exist when we meet their eyes.”