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| Ann Harrington ARCWP Priest |
Welcome: We welcome you all to our Second Sunday of Easter liturgy. Today’s readings encourage us to reflect on the importance of our faith, particularly in times, such as ours when we may not always see, or even have the imagination to envision the future.
Meditative Music: Chant of Easter Sequence, Sisters of Acquinas
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=uxbcYmn-Kag&si=pszwi1PHtDEHXLw2
Opening Prayer: Loving God, you make all things new with a fullness and hope that we can neither comprehend nor imagine. We pray that you will inspire us to let go of our natural temptations of cynicism, denial, fear, and despair. Guide us as we seek to find the courage to awaken to greater truth, greater humility, and greater care for one another. Amen.
Opening Song: Risen, Shawna Edwards
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=0zxWYyUrgog&si=fQXTS4HZXnlIeNfP
First Reading: Acts 5:12-16
Through the hands of the apostles, many signs and wonders occurred among the people. By mutual agreement, they used to meet in Solomon’s Porch. But none of the others dared to join them, despite the fact that the people held the apostles in great esteem.
Even so, more and more believers, women and men in great numbers, were continually added to their community-to the extent that people even carried their sick relatives and friends into the street and laid them on cots and mattresses, in the hope that when Peter passed by, his shadow might fall on one or another of them. Crowds from the towns around Jerusalem would gather, too, bringing their sick people and those who were troubled by unclean spirits, and they were all being healed. (These are the words of the early church writer known as Luke, to which we sayAmen.)
Psalm: Night Psalm, Thomas Merton (slightly adapted)
Lord, receive my prayer
Sweet as incense smoke
Rising from my heart
Full of care
I lift up my hands
In evening sacrifice
Lord, receive my prayer.
I meet the man
On my way
When he starts to curse
And threatens me,
Lord, guard my lips
I will not reply
Guide my steps in the night
As I go my way.
When I look to right and left
No one cares to know
Who I am or where I go.
Hear my prayer
I will trust in you
If they set traps
On my way
If they aim their guns at me
You will guide my steps
I will pass them by
In the dark
They will never see.
Lord, to you I raise
Wide and bright
Faith-filled eyes
In the night
You are my protection
Bring me home.
And receive my prayer
Sweet as incense smoke
Rising from my heart
Free of care.
Second Reading: Revelations 1:9-13, 17-19
I John, your brother, who share with you the trial, the Kindom, and the perseverance we have in Jesus, was on the island of Patmos because I proclaimed God’s word and bore witness to Jesus. It was the first day of the week and I was in the Spirit, when suddenly I heard behind me a piercing voice like the sound of a trumpet, which said, “Write on a scroll what you see, and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.”
I turned around to see who spoke to me, and I saw seven lampstands of gold and among the lampstands, a figure of human appearance wearing an ankle-length robe with a golden sash across its chest. When I saw it, I fell down as though dead. It touched me with its right hand and said, “Don’t be afraid. I am the First and the Last, the Living One. Once I was dead, but now I live forever. I hold the keys of death and the underworld. (These are the words, of the mystic known as John, which we affirm by saying: Amen)
Alleluia: Easter Alleluia, Tony Alonso https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=5ebnNwV-Sr4&si=fTwPu6_BtSzAUd1h
Gospel: John 20: 19-31
In the evening of that same day, the first day of the week, the doors were locked in the room where the disciples were, for fear of the Temple authorities.
Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you,” Having said this, the savior showed them the marks of crucifixion. The disciples were filled with joy when they saw Jesus, who said to them again, “Peace be with you. As Abba God sent me, so I’m sending you.” After saying this, Jesus breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven. If you retain anyone’s sins, they are retained.”
It happened that one of the Twelve, Thomas-nicknamed Didymus, or “Twin”-was absent when Jeus came. The other disciples kept telling him, “We have seen Jesus!” Thomas’ answer was, “I’ll never believe it without putting my finger in the nail marks and my hand into the spear wound.”
On the eighth day, the disciples were once more in the room, and this time Thomas was with them. Despite the locked doors, Jess came and stood before them, saying, “Peace be with you.” Then to Thomas, Jesus said, “Take your finger and examine my hands. Put your hand into my side. Don’t persist in your unbelief but believe.” Thomas said in response, “My Savior and my God!” Jesus then said, “you’ve become a believer because you saw e. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.
Jesus performed many other signs as well-signs not recorded here-in the presence of the disciples. But these have been recorded to help you believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Only Begotten, so that by believing you may have life in Jesus’ name. (We affirm our belief in these words by saying Amen.)
Homily for Sunday April 27, 2025 by Barbara Glatthorn of Free Spirit Inclusive Catholic Community, Greenville, NC
A recent article by David Brooks in the Atlantic begins this way:
“Charles de Gaulle began his war memoirs with this sentence: ‘All my life I had a certain idea about France’. Well, all my life I have had a certain idea about America. I have thought of America as a deeply flawed nation that is nonetheless a force for tremendous good in the world. From Abraham Lincoln to Franklin D. Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan and beyond, Americans fought for freedom and human dignity and against tyranny; we promoted democracy, funded the Marshall Plan, and saved millions of people across Africa from HIV and AIDS. When we caused harm-Vietnam, Iraq-it was because of our overconfidence and naivete, not evil intentions.
Until January 20, 2025, I didn’t realize how much of my very identity was built on this faith in my country’s goodness – on the idea that we Americans are partners in a grand heroic enterprise, that our daily lives are ennobled by service to that cause.”
We certainly can empathize with David Brooks who has had a rich career as a political writer and commentator. He has identified as a Republican, but considers himself as a moderate, a centrist. He has invested his life – in terms of his career – in America and its ideals. So, his distress since President Trump’s inauguration in January is palpable to us. We too, quoting David Brooks again: “have seen America behave vilely-toward our friends in Canada and Mexico, toward our friends in Europe, toward the heroes in Ukraine” And like David Brooks, we’ve “had trouble describing the anguish we’ve experienced. Grief Shock? …Maybe the best description for what I’m feeling is moral shame: To watch the loss of your nation’s honor is embarrassing and painful.”
This evening, we are gathered to celebrate the Second Sunday in the Season of Easter. I think that those followers of Jesus, gathered in what is traditionally called the “upper room”, would easily identify with the sentiments expressed by David Brooks. They too thought they were a part of “a grand heroic enterprise” to bring about human dignity, stand up against tyranny, and build up the kin-dom of God. They too reacted with shock, grief, and anguish. The story of Thomas reminds us that as human beings we don’t all react in the same way. While the disciples are locked in the upper room in fear, Thomas is perhaps walking through the streets of Jerusalem, listening to what people are saying, and seeing, that for the majority of people, Jesus and all his good works are already forgotten. In the midst of his own processing of what happened, he hears that Jesus has risen from the dead. Thomas has to work to incorporate this news as well rather than just accept it on the basis of what he hears from his friends. I have always liked Thomas and felt that his nickname of “doubting Thomas” was unfair. I think Thomas stands for those of us, including David Brooks, who believed in the “grand heroic enterprise” that Jesus started and represented, but are suddenly faced with the shock of its demise and what that means for us now? Suddenly, for the disciples, there is the question: what does this all mean for them now?
I’ve been studying Teilhard de Chardin’s book, The Divine Milieu, and find some of his thinking very relevant to our present situation as well as to that of the early church. First, Teilhard explains that our lives, and the divine milieu, (which we primarily understand as the Kin-dom of God) are made up of both activities and passivities: the things we do and the things that happen to us. Normally, when asked to talk about our lives, we list the things we have done or are doing. We don’t think too easily about the things that happen to us, the things that we have had no say in, even though the passivities in our lives heavily outweigh our activities. The death and resurrection of Jesus were events that happened to the disciples. In the aftermath of these events, they felt fear, anguish, diminishment, doubt, loss of the dream that held them together, confusion, helplessness.
According to Teilhard, everyone’s life is made up of activities and passivities. Teilhard says there is a way to use any and all activities and passivities to help build the Body of Christ. But we can’t use them constructively if we are unaware of them. Thus, the importance of conscious awareness. Teilhard is talking about “activity in its normal everyday sense” as we experience and see them. Most importantly, Teilhard stresses that “there is nothing that happens in the divine milieu apart from God”, not even ordinary activities like brushing your teeth, combing your hair, eating breakfast. Every activity is part of the divinization of the world in Christ. Teilhard’s simple syllogism is this:
We humans find our fulfillment in God.
Everything else finds its fulfillment in us.
Hence, everything finds its fulfillment, through us, in God.
At the same time, things happen to us as well, events occur that are not of our choosing. These are considered the passivities of life, the things we endure, have no say in: a good or poor digestive system, musical talent, love of nature, being born into dysfunctional family, poor math skills. Some of passivities help us to grow and some diminish us. In Teilhard’s system of thought our lives consist of varied experiences: activities of growth or of diminishment, and passivities of both internal and external growth, and passivities of internal and external diminishment. Teilhard, however, is a systems thinker. So he proposes in his spirituality that all activities and all passivities – whether they promote growth or diminishment have a place in the Body of Christ and are for the purpose of building up the Body of Christ, the Cosmic Christ, for the purpose of divinizing the universe. To divinize does not mean to destroy, but to sur-animate and sur-create. In other words, Christ is still in the Incarnation process. Teilhard exhorts us to “try everything for Christ; hope everything for Christ.” The more conscious we human beings become, the more united we will be in our desire to master the possibilities of the earth and to shape a Cosmic Body worthy of Resurrection. That was Teilhard’s vision.
At present, something is happening to us as a country, to each of us as citizens of this country, to our planet, and to the peoples of the world at large. I think we must understand that we are suffering and enduring. We need to process in prayer and contemplation, in dialogue, in educating ourselves to be conscious of all the passivities taking place. One benefit of processing the passivities, is that it prompts us to compassion for ourselves and others, in doing so, it enlarges the scope of our vision so that we palpably experience our interconnectedness with all things (even if the connection feels negatively charged). I know this is the season of Resurrection, but the cross remains with us.
Our first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, tells us in the very first paragraph of today’s reading, even before relating all the miracles performed in the early church that “none of the others dared to join the apostles, despite the fact that the people held the apostles in great esteem.” It was too risky to join them. The cross of exclusion by the Temple authorities and persecution by Roman authorities was still with them. The Resurrection of Jesus made no difference in that respect. Elaine Pagels, writing in another article for the Atlantic, states: “What I find astonishing about the gospel stories is that Jesus’s followers managed to take what their critics saw as the most damning evidence against their Messiah – his crucifixion – and transform it into evidence of his divine mission.”
Even the writer, known as John, of the Book of Revelations, was writing from exile in Patmos. At the time of writing in the first century, prophecy was associated with magic and astrology, then considered criminal activities. Prophesy, in particular, was believed to hold political implications. Acting today to stand up and speak truth to power will be activities that bring on likely passivities – consequences – that we need be consciously aware of in the sense that these too are building up the Body of the Cosmic Christ. To my mind, in its first real attempt at understanding Teilhard’s spirituality, I see his paradigm of activity/passivity as an incarnational view of the cross versus a salvation-oriented view which can glorify suffering rather than growing with it. It is a better fit for the modern world in terms of evolutionary science and advanced psychology.
It seems to me that we must keep that ultimate vision of the Body of the Cosmic Christ coming to completion through us and our ordinary activities: making the bed as well as attending a rally. Our activities tend to intrude on our consciousness more than our passivities. We must deepen our conscious awareness of both to grow the Body of the Cosmic Christ which is still in the Incarnation process. Both our activities and our passivities matter – they are the yeast, the seed for the growing of the Kin-dom of God- the realization of the prophesy of John that the Divine is the Alpha and Omega.
Questions for Reflection: Consider your life in terms of a few choices you made that led to your growth and development; then, consider as well, a few choices that led to harming relationships or impeding what you were trying to accomplish. On the other hand, consider your life in terms of things that happened to you (that were not by your choosing- they may be positive or negative in your estimation.) Consider how these “passive” events contributed to or hindered your growth and development. Feel free to share your thoughts.
Prayers of the Faithful: We will join our prayers to those visually expressed in this hymn. Afterward, we can express any individual prayers.
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=L50cAYnCPvA&si=6ZJvZtPggXEn5M6G
Liturgy of the Eucharist
Virtual Attendee: I invite you, the People of God, to extend your hands and pray with me:
Loving God, intensify the presence of Your Spirit in these our gifts, as they, and we, become the Body and Blood of Jesus the Christ for our wholeness and the wholeness of all creation.
We remember that on the night before he died, while at supper with his friends, Jesus Took the Bread, spoke the blessing, broke the bread, and offered it to them saying: Take and eat, this is my body.
When supper was ended, Jesus took the cup of wine, spoke the blessing, and offered it to them saying: Take and drink of the covenant made new again through my life in you. Do this in memory of me.
Let us proclaim the mystery of faith. Nurtured by your Word, nourished by your food, called anew to be your people, we acclaim your praise:
Great Amen: Amen, Marty Haugen www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UVHRvr86RU
Presider: Let us pray together as Jesus taught us:
Jan: Reader 1 - O Holy One, who is within, around and among us,
We celebrate your many names.
Your Wisdom come.
Your will be done, unfolding from the depths within us,
Each day you give us all we need;
You remind us of our limits, and we let go.
You support us in our power, and we act with courage.
For you are the dwelling place within us,
The empowerment around us,
And the celebration among us, now and forever. Amen. (Miriam Therese Winter)
Breaking of the Bread-Ann and Jan
All: Loving God, you call us to live the Gospel of peace and justice. We will live justly. Loving God, you call us to be Your presence in the world. We will love tenderly. Loving God, You call us to speak truth to power. We will walk with integrity.
Ann and Jan: This is the Bread of Life and the Cup of Blessing. How blessed are we who are called to this table.
Instrumental for Passing Communion: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=vn4ywwEnVTQ
Communion Song: Because He Lives – Easter at Saddleback
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=-RoI7EbCuOU&si=7cA5MHq3znt8p1gK
Announcements:
Mark: Closing Prayer: Rev. Cynthia Wilson
God of all creation-you have shown us the real meaning of life here on earth. It is through your immeasurable compassion, lavish generosity, and unselfish spirit that we have been awakened to our duty to be living demonstrations – yes, even exact replicas of Jesus’ life on earth.
In our activities, we pray that others will see your unconditional love.
In our loving, we pray our hearts will guide our hands and feet toward those in need,
In our going out and coming in, we pray for twenty-twenty vision to see those who have been left behind, battered, bruised, and broken.
In our searches for success, we pray for true humility, obedience, and contrite spirits.
We pray that we may be serving as conduits of radical Hope for the lonely, the last, the least, and the lost.
This is the prayer of your humble servants, given in the name of Jesus. Amen
Closing Hymn: Walking by Faith, Not by Sight, Firewall Worship
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=G0ObBkHN1PA&si=-X7du58nKBWWqqqE
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