~~~SisterSea~~~

Shared Homily Starter First Reading: Acts 2.42-47 Second Reading: 1 Peter 1.3-9 Gospel Reading: John 20.19-31 During the Easter Season, people who went through the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults, commonly known as the RCIA program, enter the final stage of the RCIA process, called Mystagogy. Mystagogy is the period after Baptism meant to be one of spiritual growth where the newly baptized learn ways to strengthen their faith and apply it to their daily lives. But this time is also a special time for us; a time to recommit to metanoia, that is, to our ongoing transformation and conversion-- individually and communally. The early Christians in the First Reading present the picture of practices that bring about mystagogy and metanoia. They faithfully continued in the Apostle's teaching, they socialized and shared everything with each other, practised neighbourly love...

Easter Vigil Reflection Tonight's readings recall for us our salvation history from our creation in the image and likeness of God. We recall God's hand in delivering the Israelites from the tyranny of Egypt to remind us of the tyrannies of our own lives, which we can overcome with God's help. Throughout our history, God makes covenants with us and we break them. God sent us prophets to teach and we ignored them. Yet God does not forsake us. Jesus, the Son of God, God's embodied Word came to teach us, to make us whole, and to make a lasting covenant with us. Jesus started his public ministry by gathering disciples and forming a community. This disciples in turn would gather others around them forming a community of communities. A few things came together this week that for me reinforced the importance of community for Christians in life and in thinking of the Resurrection. In the West we don't often think of the communal aspect of the Resurr...

Shared Homily Starter The Community is invited to share after the foot-washing   First Reading: Exodus 12.1-8, 11-14 Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 11.23-26 Gospel Reading: John 12.1-15 Tonight's readings calls us to reflect on the meaning of the sacraments that we receive. The reading from Corinthians recalls the institution of the Eucharist. Some of us may remember the old Baltimore Catechism definition of a sacrament as “an outward sign instituted by Christ to give grace”. I don't think we are given grace so that we can get time off for good behaviour from purgatory or to fill up some heavenly milk bottle or egg that represents our soul. We are given grace so that the grace we receive can bear fruit. By that I mean that we are nourished through the Eucharist, so that we may be nourishment for others. John's Gospel shows us that in living in the daylight of...

A Few Thoughts Let him be crucified! Or in our case, we are saying, “Let them be crucified!” During Lent some of us have been participating in a Lenten Program called, “I thirst”, which focused on Earth's dwindling fresh, clean water. But water is not the only gift from God that we are crucifying. For example, we know that the Earth is suffering. Water and air are being routinely polluted and the lungs of the Earth are being destroyed through deforestation. Most of this is devastation is perpetrated to support corporate profits. Let's look at just one corporate example, Coca-Cola, which has operations in China, Colombia, El Salavador, Guatemala, India, Kenya, Mexico, Pakistan, the Philippines, Tanzania, and Turkey. In Guatemala and Colombia, advocates for fair labour practices at Coca-Cola bottling plants, are systematically intimidated through kidnapping, torture and murder. People in areas of India and Kenya are getting sick and dying because Coca Col...

Shared Homily Starter First Reading: Genesis 12.1-4 Second Reading: 2 Timothy 1.8-10 Gospel Reading: Matthew 17.1-9 Whether we think this story is a religious fantasy or accept that it all actually happened, the important point is that this story presents us with a mystery beyond what science or history can prove. This story attempts to draw us into the mystery of Jesus’ as that mystery was experienced by his followers─ the Jesus community. This story is not one of proof that Jesus was God; a Jewish community would have rejected this out of hand. Rather, it is a manifestation of Jesus as the Messiah. Jesus is presented as a transformed human being, the new Moses, who will lead us on the way to wholeness as members of the family of God. In the Hebrew Bible, Elijah was carried to heaven before he died and Jewish tradition says the same of Moses. Peter’s offer to build three dwellin...