-Last Sunday's homily is available
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at usccb.org/readings
-check out this weeks LinC letter at www.parishLinCLetter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 5:30pm on Saturday, 9:30am and 6:00pm on Sunday
Mission Impossible vs. Commissioned in persona Christi
This is the last homily in this Easter series on believing/unbelieving. I have identified the lingering symptoms of unbelieving that remain part of our lives as those claiming to believe: fear of death/clinging to material life, isolated individualism, autonomous control freaks, judging competitive monkey mind, clinging to the past and the unreal, and today, secret agents of a distant God. Each of these symptoms of unbelieving or slavery to sin and death has a complementary or opposite symptom of believing in communion with God and others: in the world not of it, member and child, mutual submisission in love, friends in the Lord, making room for the true, the new, the real and today, called together as God by God!
You remember the Sunday night program in the sixties: Mission Impossible. A central character begins the show each week receiving a tape recorded proposal from someone in charge. The voice on the tape is anonymous, the listener is challenged to accept this top secret mission and the tape self-destructs after it concludes so that there is no way to connect the agent to the one who has engaged him.
That is an image for me of the way most "believers" approach life in the world. We show up to church on Sunday, we hear a challenging call from a rather "distant" God, yo go out into our daily life to succeed by our own resources, representing no one, not indicating that anyone has called us, sent us, or is behind the craziness of life.
Pentecost proclaims a radically different notion of believers engaged by God, on a mission of truth and love, under the banner of Jesus Christ and formed as a member of a team formed by the Spirit. COMMISSIONED - ambassadors of the COMMUNION which is the Love who is God.
Does this resonate with your believing?
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Get into the ring! How this works...
This is easy! Each week on Thursday I post my homily idea...my main focus for preaching this coming Sunday. What I am hoping for is a reaction from people in the pews. Does my "focus" connect with your daily life, faith, and experience? Or not? Either affirm the direction I am going in (by giving me an example from your life) or challenge me, ask for clarification! Questions are the best! Reaction rather than reflection is what I'm looking for here. Don't be afraid, get in the ring. Ole!