The Catholic Leader - July 2

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The Catholic Leader, July 2, 2017
Your Daily Bread
SAINTLY LIFE
St Thomas, Apostle
ST Thomas, whose feast day is celebrated
tomorrow (July 3), is the apostle best
known for his encounter with the Risen
Christ when he proclaimed “My Lord and
My God”.
An account of the meeting is given in
John 20:25-28: “... The other disciples told
(Thomas), ‘We have seen the Lord.’
“But he said to them, ‘Unless I see in his
hands the mark of the nails, and place my
finger into the mark of the nails, and place
my hand into his side, I will never believe.’
“Eight days later, his disciples were inside
again, and Thomas was with them.
“Although the doors were locked, Jesus
came and stood among them and said,
‘Peace be with you.’ Then he said to
Thomas, ‘Put your finger here, and see my
hands; and put out your hand, and place
it in my side...’ Thomas answered him, ‘My
Lord and my God!’”
14th Sunday in Ordinary Time
July 9
1st Reading: Zechariah 9:9-10
2nd Reading: Romans 8:9, 11-13
Gospel Reading: Matthew 11:25-30
13th Sunday in Ordinary Time
July 2
1st Reading: 2 Kings 4:8-11, 14-16a
2nd Reading: Romans 6:3-4, 8-11
Gospel Reading: Matthew 10:37-42
DURING Ordinary Time the Sunday read-
ings focus on our day-to-day living of the
two great mysteries of Christian faith in
God, the Christmas mystery of Incarnation
and the Easter mystery of Resurrection.
Two of next Sunday’s readings focus
directly on the interiority of Jesus, the
source of his practical living.
The interior life, or “spirituality”, of Jesus
is at the heart of his experience of God
and his relation with his disciples.
Both the wonder of his Incarnation and
the hope of his Resurrection are felt in his
daily living, and ours as Christians.
Baptism and Eucharist enact our union
with Christ and empower our sharing
in these two great mysteries, a present
grace and a future hope.
The Second Reading next Sunday,
from Paul’s Letter to the Romans, writes
of two great powers operating in our lives.
Paul names them “flesh” and “Spirit”.
The “flesh” is our humanity as a creature
of God with an inborn inclination to ignore
or reject any need for God in our daily
lives.
Products of millions of years of evolu-
tion that we are, we are the first beings
on Earth to develop self-awareness and a
resulting freedom to choose.
This self-awareness naturally inclines us
toward a self-centredness that makes us
see ourselves to be the centre of our lives.
The “Spirit” is God’s interior life, God’s di-
vine loving, gifting us to love as God loves.
God’s love is much more than an emo-
tion. It is God’s life and power to create life.
Through Jesus and all who love like
Jesus, God’s love is raising (resurrecting)
the world into a new creation, and a new
way of living.
St Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the
Jesuits (1491-1556), called these two
forces, that he felt powerfully in his own
life, the “bad spirit” and the “good spirit”.
The “bad spirit” is the source of tempta-
tions to self-centredness and sin (“unlove”)
and death, both in Jesus and in all of us.
The “good spirit” is God’s Holy Spirit,
the creative source of all living and all
freedom to love.
The Gospel Reading , from Matthew’s
Gospel, is unusual. It reads more like
something from the Fourth Gospel, a
meditation on the interiority of Jesus.
Jesus joyfully praises God for what he
sees happening in his disciples.
Simple and unlearned as they are, they
begin to grasp something of his own rela-
tion with God.
Through openness to God in their
hearts and to others in their lives, they be-
gin to discover and feel God’s presence
and power in their lives.
They begin to feel God loving them in
the way Jesus constantly felt.
Union with Christ as his disciples is like a
yoke that Jesus bears with us, like two ani-
mals side by side pulling the same plough,
not as something harsh or unyielding but
as God’s merciful Spirit of loving.
The Spirit already interiorly gifted to us
opens our hearts and empowers our free-
dom to live and love like Jesus, to share
already in Christ’s resurrection.
God’s loving in us as it was in Jesus, far
more powerful than our natural self-cen-
tredness, prepares us to share fully the
resurrection of Jesus in a bodily way.
The Catholic Leader’s contributor Jesuit
Father John Reilly died on March 15. This
commentary was written in 2014.
Next Sunday’s readings BY FR JOHN REILLY
Apostle: The
Incredu-
lity of Saint
Thomas,
painting by
Caravaggio.
Jesus, friend who never abandons
The month of July is
dedicated to the Pre-
cious Blood of Jesus
Christ. This is an excerpt
of the homily of St John
Paul II in 1979 for the
feast of the Body and
Blood of Christ celebrat-
ed with first communi-
cants.
GREAT is my joy on seeing
you here, so numerous and so
full of fervour, to celebrate
with the pope the liturgical
solemnity of the Body and
Blood of the Lord.
I greet you all and each one individu-
ally with the deepest tenderness, and
I thank you for having come to renew
your Holy Communion.
I thank also your parish priests,
always dynamic and zealous, and your
parents and relatives, who have pre-
pared you and accompanied you.
You are the favourites of Jesus: “Let
the children come to me,” the divine
Master said, “Do not hinder them”
(Luke 18:16).
You prepared for your First Com-
munion with such commitment and
diligence, and your first meeting with
Jesus was a moment of intense emotion
and deep happiness.
Remember forever this blessed day of
First Communion. Remember forever
your fervour and your pure joy.
Many children had expressed the
desire to receive First Communion from
the hands of the Pope.
Certainly, it would have been a great
pastoral consolation for me to give
Jesus for the first time to the boys and
girls of Rome. But that is not possible;
and then it is better for each child to
receive his First Communion in his own
parish, from his own parish priest.
But at least it is possible for me
to give Holy Communion today to
representatives of yours, keeping all the
others present in my love, in this vast
and magnificent Upper Room.
At the same time I wish to leave with
you some thoughts, which can help you
to keep your faith always clear, your
love for Jesus in the Eucharist always
fervent, and your life innocent.
This is the first thought.
Jesus rose again, he ascended to
heaven, but he willed to remain with us
and for us, in every place on earth.
The Eucharist is really a divine
invention.
Before dying on the Cross, offering
his life to the Father as a sacrifice of
adoration and love, Jesus instituted the
Eucharist, changing the bread and the
wine into his own Person and giving
the Apostles and their successors, the
bishops and priests, the power of mak-
ing him present in Holy Mass.
Jesus, therefore, willed to remain
with us for ever.
Jesus willed to be closely united with
us in Holy Communion, to prove his
love to us directly and personally.
Each one can say: “Jesus loves me. I
love Jesus.”
St Teresa of the Child Jesus, recalling
the day of her First Communion, wrote:
“Oh, how sweet was the first kiss that
Jesus gave my soul ... It was a kiss of
love, I felt loved and I said in my turn:
‘I love you, I give myself to you for
ever ...’” Teresa had disappeared like a
drop of water lost in the ocean. There
remained only Jesus – the master, the
King.
And she began to weep with joy and
consolation, to the amazement of her
companions.
Jesus is present in the Eucharist to be
met, loved, received and consoled.
Here is the second thought.
Never forget it. Jesus wishes to be
our closest friend, our companion along
the way.
You have, certainly, so many friends;
but you cannot always be with them
and they cannot always help you, listen
to you, console you.
Jesus, on the contrary, is the friend
who never abandons you. Jesus knows
you one by one, personally.
He knows your name. He walks with
you every day. He participates in your
joys and consoles you in moments of
grief and sadness.
Jesus is the friend we cannot do
without when we have met him and
understood that he loves us and wants
our love.
Here is the last thought.
Life, long or short, is a journey to-
wards Paradise – there is our fatherland,
there is our real home; there is our
appointment.
Jesus is waiting for us in paradise.
Never forget this supreme and con-
soling truth. And what is Holy Com-
munion but an anticipation of Paradise?
In fact, in the Eucharist it is Jesus
himself who is waiting for us and whom
we will meet one day openly in Heaven.
Receive Jesus often in order never
to forget Paradise, to be always on the
march towards the house of the Heav-
enly Father, to enjoy Paradise a little
already.
I conclude by saying to you, keep
yourselves worthy of Jesus whom you
receive. Be innocent and generous.
Undertake to make life beautiful for
everyone – with obedience, kindness,
good manners.
The secret of joy is goodness.
Never forget it. Jesus wishes to
be our closest friend, our
companion along the way.
Pope St John Paul II: “Jesus ... willed to remain with us for ever.”
Monday - St Thomas, Apostle
Thought to have spread Gospel to India
Wednesday - St Elizabeth of Portugal
Queen who was kind to the poor
Thursday - St Anthony Zaccaria
Co-founder of order called the Barnabites
Friday - St Maria Goretti
Patron of youth
Saturday - Blessed Peter To Rot
Beatified by Pope St John Paul II in 1995
FEAST DAYS THIS WEEK