{"id":972,"date":"2018-04-06T05:21:52","date_gmt":"2018-04-06T05:21:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/?p=972"},"modified":"2018-04-06T05:21:52","modified_gmt":"2018-04-06T05:21:52","slug":"homily-thursday-of-easter-week-yr-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/2018\/04\/06\/homily-thursday-of-easter-week-yr-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"HOMILY THURSDAY of EASTER WEEK Yr II"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Being Missionary Disciples<\/em><\/p>\n

(Acts 3:11-26; Ps 8; Lk 24:35-48)<\/p>\n

**********************************************<\/p>\n

Pope Francis has repeatedly stated that he wants the church to be missionary disciples.<\/p>\n

The gospel for today is could serve as a manual for how to be missionary disciples: faith; repentance; forgiveness; redemptive suffering; understanding the bible, and witnessing.<\/p>\n

First, Jesus shows his disciples his hands and feet, and eats fish, all to show that it was truly him; that he was truly risen and alive. Peter in the first reading also adds that it is faith in the name of Jesus that brings about healing. To be a missionary disciple is to first of all have a personal faith encounter with the Risen Lord; to believe in him with all our hearts, and to put our total trust in him.<\/p>\n

The second ingredient is repentance and all that means. For Peter, to repent is to turn away from our sin and evil ways, and to turn to God. The word for repentance, metanoia<\/em>, means to turn around and put on a higher mind.<\/p>\n

Next comes forgiveness and all that is involved with that word and experience. To repent is to come to God for God\u2019s forgiveness, to forgive anyone who has hurt us in any way, and to apologize to and make amends to anyone we may have hurt. It is to be reconciled with God, with all others, with ourselves and all of God\u2019s creation.<\/p>\n

Both Jesus and Peter then mention the necessity of the messiah to enter into his glory through suffering. There are lessons in life that only some degree of suffering will teach us. Psychologists teach that the only way through the pain is through the pain. Therapy only lightens the suffering; good spirituality gives us the strength to go through the suffering to a deeper character and greater compassion possible no other way.<\/p>\n

Then Jesus does something very important \u2013 something that we as a Church have overlooked for centuries: he opened their minds to understand the scriptures. The Word of God, the bible, must be central in the lives of Jesus\u2019 disciples. After all, Jesus is the Word of God made flesh; to become familiar with his Word is to get to know him. A missionary disciple must connect faith with his or her life, and let that Word of God penetrate and heal him or her.<\/p>\n

Finally, a missionary disciple is a witness to the resurrection. To be a witness is not just to announce this new life \u2013 it is to manifest it, to live it in our lives.<\/p>\n

St. Peter in the first reading is a beautiful example of a missionary disciple. He has come to believe fully in Jesus and his resurrection; he has repented and received God\u2019s unconditional love as forgiveness for his denials; he is now ready to suffer anything for the sake of Jesus and this new way of life; he understands that that all the prophecies about Jesus as the messiah have been fulfilled from the time of Moses including all the psalms and the prophets. It is psalm 22 that is most clearly fulfilled by Jesus on the cross \u2013 the apparent absence of God – \u201cMy God, my God, why have you abandoned me?\u201d And lastly, Peter is a tremendous witness, fearlessly proclaiming the Good News of the resurrection to all who will listen.<\/p>\n

To be a witness is crucial to the church. Someone phoned a visiting missionary one day to say that she and her husband were staying away from the church because one of the local leaders drank a lot, was seen staggering home at times, yet was in church on Sunday proclaiming the Word and giving out communion. They were scandalized by this lack of integrity and witness by this leader. The missionary encouraged her not to leave the church, but rather to live Matthew 18:15, where Jesus tells us to go to any member of the church who is doing something hurtful, and point our their fault. It seems no one was daring to do this, and this person had not understood this passage until that conversation. Hopefully this person has had to courage to live it out and perhaps make a difference in the life of that particular faith community.<\/p>\n

The Eucharist that we celebrate now is food for our journey as missionary disciples. We encounter the Risen Lord in his Word and receive him in communion; we repent in the penitential rite; receive his forgiveness, and are sent out to suffer for and witness to the presence of the Risen Lord in our lives, right here and now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Being Missionary Disciples (Acts 3:11-26; Ps 8; Lk 24:35-48) ********************************************** Pope Francis has repeatedly stated that he wants the church to be missionary disciples. The gospel for today is could serve as a manual for how to be missionary disciples: faith; repentance; forgiveness; redemptive suffering; understanding the bible, and witnessing. First, Jesus shows his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-easter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=972"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/972\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":973,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/972\/revisions\/973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}