-Last Easter Sunday's homily is available by email
-The scriptures for this Sunday are at usccb.org>
-I am preaching at the 5:30 and the 11:00 Masses
Re-creation of Reconciliation
This scene in John's Gospel is the first "communal celebration of the Sacrament of reconciliation". Jesus finds the apostles dead in guilt, fear, and sadness. He breaks into the bomb shelter of their "death in sin".
He extends to them the peace of God - "everything is 'good' between them and God" - shalom.
Then he does something (the word is the same as the creation story) that only God is known for doing: breathing into dead clay and creating a "new life". That is the effect of the healing mercy of God - new life, God-like life, where there was the emptiness and dead of sin. And then he "sends them" to do it again and again.
The identity, means or the mode, and mission of the Church is revealed as breathing the Spirit of Jesus into those who are isolated, separated, and dead in their sins, guilt, and sadness and re-creating them into instruments of mercy, life, and love - the Body of the Resurrected Jesus.
Wow.. Is that what you think you're doing in your Christian life? Or...not so much. Let's get it going.
