Gospel Reflections for Challenging Times

One quick update before we get to today’s reflection.   In the interest of streamlining and simplifying these reflections on Facebook, starting tomorrow, they will not be posted on the St. Robert Bellarmine-Chicago Facebook page.   You can continue to find them on the following Facebook pages: Bill Frere (Deacon Bill), Mary Undoer of Knots Parish and on Deacons of the Archdiocese of Chicago.   Friday – 7 th Week of Easter Gospel – John 21:15-19 Reconciliation Three-Peat Peter Primacy, Sea of Galilee As Jesus appears to the disciples for almost the last time before His Ascension, He asks Peter “Do you love me?”   Not once, but 3 times!   A bit of overkill??   Maybe not!   Most scripture scholars suggest that these 3 statements of faith are meant to balance out Peter’s 3 denials of Jesus on Holy Thursday night.   Still, it seems a bit odd.   If this was a conversation between a parent and a child or a teenager, you can picture the...

  Thursday - 7 th Week of Easter Gospel – John 17:20-26 That WE May Be One Basilica of Annunciation, Nazareth For the past 5 years or so, the Archdiocese of Chicago has been going through a period of ‘renewal’, a time of re-organizing its physical makeup and number of churches in order to better serve the needs of the people, particularly with the limited number of priests available to ‘pastor’ a parish.   Some parishes have physically merged into a new parish with a new name.   In some (many) cases, some parish churches have been permanently closed. It has been and continues to be a painful, heart-wrenching experience as, for many, the church where one was educated, baptized or married has been shuttered.   The process has not been an easy one.   In some cases, the renewal has devolved into an ‘us and them’ mentality.   You closed my church and theirs stayed open.   Many parishoners are angry, hurt, confused, even resentful, as they see...

  Wednesday – 7 th Week of Easter Reading – Acts 20:28-38 Tearful Farewells Church of Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem There is a story I heard many decades ago about a Christian missionary who went and lived with an isolated tribe in Africa.   For 2 years, he lived with them, worked with them, instructed them and guided them in the Christian faith.   At the end of those 2 years, a good number of the villagers were baptized.   And at the end of the ritual, the missionary got up and told them “I have finished my last instruction in your village.   I will never come back to teach anyone else here.   From this day on, it is you people who must teach and judge whether anyone is ready for Baptism.   From this day forward, stop depending on me and start depending on the Holy Spirit.   You were a people with a past and no future; now you are the People of God.   You are now the Church.   If what I have taught you means anything at all, you...

  Tuesday – 7 th Week of Easter Gospel – John 17:1-11 Time’s Up! The Upper Room, Jerusalem Well, it finally happened.   THAT day has arrived!   Yesterday our daughter, son-in-law and 2 grandsons moved into their new home.   What was once a 17 mile drive for us has now turned into 550 miles as they settle into their home 3 states away.   It’s not like we didn’t know.   They had been talking about it for a couple of years.   Even in the last 8 months or so, when they started hitting open houses and massively de-cluttering their house, it still didn’t feel real.   Even when they went through the process of bidding on a house and putting theirs up for sale, even when they went through inspections and hiring movers, even when the furniture arrived on Saturday and the family finally locked the doors on the old house for the last time, it still happened way too fast.   From sad endings come new, bright and hopeful beginnings! There a...

  Monday - 7 th Week of Easter Gospel – John 16:29-33 Hope and Courage View from Mt. Carmel By now, I think we are all just a bit afraid to turn on the news or open the newspaper, worried that we will be faced with another shooting, another massacre, another heart-wrenching tragedy, tough economic news, the war in Ukraine, tension among world nations.   You name it! “I have told you this so that you might have peace in me. In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world.”  Today’s Gospel offers all of us words of hope and comfort.   Jesus is sharing His final words with His disciples, His friends.   He knows what is to come.   In a matter of hours, He faces suffering and death.   And yet His focus is completely on the Apostles!   And He reminds them that, even when they are scattered, they are not alone; they never will be!   He will continue to guide them, encourage them and inspire them...