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Sunday, April 30, 2017

Journey on the Road to Emmaus with the Risen Christ

Sermon by Rev. John Paul Shea
Third Sunday of Easter, April 30, 2017
Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish, Tucson, AZ

As we come together again,  let us allow Our Lord Jesus to open our minds and hearts
to the mystery of His resurrection.
On this Third Sunday of Easter, our Church gives us the Gospel of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. (Luke 24:13-35) This is one of the most intriguing manifestations of our resurrected Lord.
Two disciples of Our Lord left Jerusalem late on Sunday and walked to a town seven miles away called Emmaus. We do not know  where this town is located or why they were leaving Jerusalem.

What we do know, however, is that these two men were shaken up by what had occurred in Jerusalem -- Jesus Christ had been crucified and died. They had heard that He had risen from the dead. 

They are discussing these things when Our Lord Jesus suddenly appears beside them. They do not recognise Him because they didn't believe that He had risen from the dead. They think He is a stranger, so they begin a conversation with Him. Slowly, Our Lord opens their eyes and hearts to the reality of Who was in front of them and that in fact He had risen from the dead.

In fact, these witnesses of the Risen Christ make a 180-degree turn! They immediately return to Jerusalem to speak about what they had seen and heard on the Road to Emmaus.

My brothers and sisters, let us allow Our Lord to open our eyes and hearts to the message of today’s Gospel. As Christians, each one of us is on a journey -- not to any town or city, but to heaven. Today’s Gospel calls us to  
recognize the greater meaning of our faith through the resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Our Church is a mystical Church. Many seem to focus on social justice, and lose sight of the fact that the end is not temporal nor earthly, but heavenly and eternal. In fact, Cardinal Robert Sarah, who was appointed as prefect for the 
Congregation for Divine Worship  by Pope Francis in 2014, recently gave us a reminder of the importance of our Church’s mission as the mystical body of Christ. 

“If the Church, with the obsession she has today with the values of justice, social rights and the struggle against poverty, ends up as a result by forgetting her contemplative soul, she will fail in her mission and she will be abandoned by a great many of her faithful, owing to the fact that they will no longer recognize in her what constitutes her specific mission,” Cardinal Sarah said. So he reminds us of our ultimate end, eternal life.

The two ways we come to a deeper understanding of the revelation of the risen Christ is through the Word of God and the Holy Eucharist. As Our Lord Jesus opened the minds of the disciples on the Road to Emmaus with what had been said about Him
They recognised Him in the breaking of the bread
in all the Scriptures, so Our Lord has given us His Church to understand what is said of Christ in Sacred Scripture. We have the magisterium and we have the Catechism of the Catholic Church to help us come to a better understanding of the Word of God.

As Catholics, we believe in the True Presence of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist. This sacred gift is not simply bread and wine. No, this gift is the literal Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ!

In fact, many saints have lived for years on nothing but the Holy Eucharist because this food is not earthly food but eternal food. For example, we just celebrated the feast of Saint Catherine of Sienna who lived in the 14th century. For the seven-year period before her death, Saint Catherine took no food into her body other than the Eucharist. Although Catherine ate nothing but the Holy Eucharist, this did not cause her to lose energy. No, the Holy Eucharist instead became a source of extraordinary strength.

My brothers and sisters, as we reflect on the revelation of Our Lord Jesus in today’s Gospel passage, let us allow our Lord to open our eyes and hearts to the gift that comes
Fr. John Paul Shea
before us as Catholics! Our Lord Jesus has come into our world to give eternal salvation to those who believe in Him! Our Lord indeed suffered and has risen from the dead.  And Our Lord has given us His Church with His Word of Truth and the Holy Eucharist to guide us and to strengthen us until He comes again!

In this time in which we live today when many are living in sin and when many souls are in jeopardy of perishing for eternal life, let us therefore recognize the manifestation of the
risen Lord by living in His Word and receiving Him worthily in the Holy Eucharist.

For, the reality is that this world of the flesh is ending, and a new world is coming. Our Lord is coming again, and those who live in spirit and truth will live in the new world to come and will see the fullness of Our Lord face to face. 

Let us therefore come to recognize this great gift that waits. Let us give our entire lives, body, mind, and soul to Our Lord Jesus Christ so that we can be found worthy to live in the mystical grace of His Father’s Kingdom forever. Amen.


Sunday, April 23, 2017

Divine Mercy is God's Gift to Our Time!

Sermon by Rev. John Paul Shea
Divine Mercy Sunday, April 23, 2017
Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish, Tucson, AZ

Today is the Second Sunday in Easter and  Divine Mercy Sunday!

Divine Mercy is God's gift to our time, declared Pope Saint John Paul II in his sermon at the canonization of Saint Faustina Kowalska. He canonised the young Polish nun in 2000. Her visions of Jesus Christ revealed to the world the boundless love and mercy of our God.  

In a world filled with suffering, violence, and confusion, Saint Pope John Paul II proclaimed that the Sunday after Easter would be the feast of Divine Mercy, therefore fulfilling one of requests of Christ made through Saint Faustina.

Saint John Paul II recognized that the choice for Divine Mercy Sunday to be celebrated on the second week of Easter was not random but instead had been a little recognised part of the Church from the beginning. 

The readings for today (John 20:19-31) -- with Thomas invited to put his hands into the side of Christ to aid his unbelief -- liturgically allow us to celebrate the mystery of God's self sacrificing love. God so loved the world, He sent His only Son. 

That Our Lord gave Saint Faustina revelations of His Mercy during the early 20th century is no coincidence. God sent his message of Divine Mercy into our world as He knew we would be entering into difficult times.

Saint Faustina lived 
during the advent of World War I, a critical time in human history. Before her death in 1938, she predicted that
St. Faustina, Secretary of
God's Divine Mercy
"there will be [another] war, a terrible, terrible war," and she asked the nuns to pray for Poland.

In her messages from Jesus, Saint Faustina seemed to indicate urgency in Our Lord’s message of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. God knew that the wars and violence and dangers would continue to escalate and that the message would be needed even more in our times. It is of utmost importance that we call upon God’s mercy because the time of judgement is nearing. 

In His messages given to Saint Faustina our Lord Jesus told Faustina that “she will prepare the world for [His] final coming” (Diary 429). Our Lord Jesus said to Saint Faustina, “Speak to the world about My mercy ... It is a sign for the end times. After it will come the Day of Justice (Diary 848).” Our Lord said, “I am prolonging the time of mercy for the sake of sinners. But woe to them if they do not recognize this time of My visitation” (Diary 1160). He who refuses to pass through the door of My mercy must pass through the door of My justice. (Diary 1146). This is a reference to what happens to sinners if they refuse to repent. 

In one of her visions in 1935, Saint Faustina writes: "I saw an Angel, the executor of God's wrath... about to strike the earth...I began to beg God earnestly for the world with words which I heard interiorly. As I prayed in this way, I saw the Angel's helplessness, and he could not carry out the just punishment." 

The following day an inner voice taught Saint Faustina to say the prayer of the Divine Mercy Chaplet. I would recommend all Catholics to learn and pray this prayer. As some of you know, when we pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, we repeat the words, “For the sake of His sorrowful passion have mercy on us and on the whole world.” 

In these words, we are asking God to intervene in our lives and in our world so that all will heed Our Lord’s call of repentance. We are begging our Lord to give us more time so that more persons will convert their lives to God before his justice descends upon the Earth.

My brothers and sisters, let us take to heart the message of Divine Mercy given to our
Fr John Paul Shea
Church through Saint Faustina. Like the message of Fatima which was also given to our Church in the early 20th century, the message of Divine Mercy calls us to recognize the seriousness of the times in which we live today and our need for repentance and conversion.

Our Lord is coming again, and He is coming soon as a just judge. We must never forget this. But He doesn’t want anyone to perish. He wants to save us because He is merciful.

The message of Divine Mercy therefore is a message of urgency. We do not know when Our Lord Jesus is coming again, but it is clear that we have reached a critical phase of the end times which began with the birth of our Church 2000 years ago. In just the past century alone our world has seen more violence, more wars, and more disregard for God’s revealed truths than anytime throughout the past 2000 years! With the rapid increase of immorality in this society and world, even within our Church today we are witnessing compromises toward the truths of our faith given to us by our Lord Jesus Christ.

As we celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday on this second week of Easter, let us understand the seriousness of our call to be faithful to our Lord Jesus Christ and the teachings He has given to our Church. Let us call upon our Lord’s mercy for ourselves and for the world. Let us seek God’s mercy while there is still time because time is short! For the sake of His sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world!


Sunday, April 16, 2017

He is Risen! So Shall We!

By death He conquered death; and to those in the graves He granted life. (The Divine Liturgy of Our Father Saint John Chrysostom, Byzantine Catholic Rite)

Riding the Matterhorn in Disneyland California
by Susan Fox

I want to live where soul meets body
And let the sun wrap its arms around me and
Bathe my skin in water cool and cleansing
And feel
Feel what it's like to be new

(Soul Meets Body sung by Death Cab for Cutie written by Benjamin Gibbard)

So I was waiting in line for a wild ride on the Matterhorn in Disneyland, California. Probably it was my third time round. 

I happened to hear a Mormon father talking to his three sons, telling them about the planets they’d rule with their wives in the life that is to come. They would get to tell everyone else on their planet what to do to live a godly life. Oh boy.

I turned around (they were behind me in line). I said, “Is God your Father?”  

“Oh yes!” he responded. “Well,” I said, “God is my Father too! And that makes us brother and sister so I will be there with you!” 

He was careful not to choke with laughter.  But I’m sure I’m the last person he expected to see on his private planet.

However, I am Catholic, and I fully expect to see him at my banquet in the Kingdom of God. I asked Our Father to invite him. But I will be dressed in a different state, wearing my
You are invited to my banquet too!
high-powered resurrected and spiritual body, having shuffled off my temporal coil.


Christ in His Resurrection showed us this future body is fully fleshed with bones and muscles, able to eat and drink. Apparently it is also capable of suddenly appearing in rooms as well! 

Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have. When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it in their presence. (Luke 24: 36-43)
But one thing my Mormon friend didn’t understand about the afterlife was that marriage is a natural institution, not a supernatural one. No one will be begetting children in the Kingdom of Heaven. The sensual aspect of our natural bodies will not be part of the future man. Instead it will be transformed into something better. We will be like Him! 

"Beloved, we are now children of God, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when Christ appears, we will be like Him, for we will see Him as He is." (1John 3:2)

That isn’t something a Mormon would comprehend. In fact, they deny that the Mary conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit. Their leader, Brigham Young, said if that had occurred, their women could not be baptised by the Holy Spirit as they risked becoming pregnant. God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit were gods with a carnal nature when Mormonism was founded. Today they define the Spirit as spirit. But the Father and Son still  are identified as immortal beings with a carnal nature.


To the Mormon at Disneyland, Jesus would have said, “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God.” (Matt 22:29-30) That’s what He told the
Sadducees who did not believe in the resurrection. They had asked Jesus about the widow married seven times without having any children. In the future life, “Whose wife will she be of the seven, since all of them were married to her?” (Matt 22:28)

Jesus’ response? “At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage” (Matthew 22:29-30) The widow will be living the perfect realisation of her humanity completely satisfied by her deep participation in the Trinitarian Life of God and supernatural love of neighbour, known as the communion of saints. 

In fact, Jesus said, “people at the resurrection will be like the angels in heaven.”

Note the word “like” in that quote. Jesus is not saying we will be flying around as pure spirits with no bodies. No in fact our likeness to angels will not occur through dis-incarnation, but “by another kind of spiritualisation of his (our) bodily nature, that is by another system of powers in man.” according to Pope Saint John Paul II in his classic work Theology of the Body (Section 66.5) 

Theology of the Body is a series of weekly audiences given by Pope John Paul II in the early 1980s. It is generally associated with the unity and indissolubility of marriage. But to my surprise he has a big section on the Resurrection of the Body. And using Scripture, he has nailed down what it will be like living in eternity with God.  

The pope rejects Plato’s idea that the body and soul are only temporarily linked in favour of Aristotle’s teaching that body and soul together constitute the unity and integrity  of the human being. That would seem to be borne out by Christ’s words on the Resurrection in Luke. (Theology of Body, 66.5) 

"But those who are considered worthy to share in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage. In fact, they can no longer die, because they are like the angels. And since they are sons of the resurrection, they are sons of God. (Luke 20:35-36)

“This statement allows us above all to deduce a spiritualisation of man according to a dimension that is different from that of earthly life,” Pope John Paul II said.  “It is obvious that we are not dealing here with a transformation of man’s nature into an angelic, that is purely spiritual nature. The context indicates clearly that in the other world man will keep his own psychosomatic (both mind and body) nature. If it were otherwise, it would be meaningless to speak about the resurrection.” (Theology of the Body, 66.5)

Then He defines resurrection:  “Restoration to the true life of human bodiliness, which was subjected to death in its temporal phase.”

Speaking again to the Sadducees, Jesus reminded them, “But about the resurrection of the dead—have you not read what God said to you, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’ ? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.” (Matt 22: 31-32)

The Future Life: Full of living men and women whose unique lives we are familiar on this earth. We will have living bodies completely integrated with living souls in one unity known as the human person. 

However, peaceful co-existence between body and soul  is not what we experience now. The pope reminds us of St. Paul’s quote, “I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind.” (Rom 7:23) In fact, doesn’t it feel like we always  start with good intentions, but quite frankly then we end up doing ill instead of good?

“Eschatological (future) man will be free from this opposition,” the pope said. Good news! Our body will return to “perfect unity and harmony with the spirit!” (67.1) Man will no longer feel at war with himself or capable of sin. In the supernatural state of life, we will have complete self-mastery of spirit over body.

Pope John Paul II noted that in this earthly life many spiritually mature individuals manage to use the energies of their spirit to master the forces of the body, but there is always the possibility of St. Paul’s opposition: “I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind.”

But future man is perfectly spiritualised. The possibility of such a war within himself is “completely eliminated.” (Theology of the Body,67.2) Yahoo! The fact that humans have complete and effortless self-mastery in heaven does not mean that man is dehumanised, but in fact we have the perfect realisation of our humanity.

The spirit’s primacy will be realised. “It will be manifested in a perfect spontaneity without any opposition on the part of the body.” (Theology of the Body, 67.2)

Nevertheless we shouldn’t see this as some sort of victory of the spirit over the body, the pope cautions. “The resurrection will consist in the perfect participation of all that is bodily in man in all that is spiritual in him… and in the perfect realisation of what is personal in man.”  (Theology of the Body, 67.2)

This is no Nirvana that the pope is writing about. Our unique individual personality will be still there. In fact, the Catholic Church teaches that we are not to deny our senses, but in fact we are to work at their sanctification in this life. They’ll be with us for eternity in a resurrected form.

As my mother lay in the hospital — mere days before her death in 2001, I brought in a bunch of herbs from my garden. She was recently and suddenly struck blind, dying of Sepsis, her body swelling. But she savoured the smell of the herbs with such gusto. I have never seen another human being enjoy the sense of smell as much as she did at that moment. That is God’s plan for all of our lives, but we often wait too long to experience that sense of joy.

The next step for Mom and all of us,  who live a good life, is another kind of  divinization. 

“Participation in the inner life of God Himself, penetration and permeation of what is essentially human by what is essentially divine, will then reach its peak, so that the life of the human spirit will reach a fullness that was absolutely inaccessible to it before,” the pope said. (Theology of the Body, 67.3)

This will be a fruit of grace, that is of God’s self-communication in His divinity — not just to man’s soul — but to “the whole of man’s psychosomatic subjectivity.” (Theology of the Body 67.3)  Now psychosomatic means both mind and body. Subjectivity  refers to the fact that not only will man experience God in his interior state, but he will also see him face to Face. 

“The divinization in the other world (indicated by Christ’s words) will bring to the human spirit such a range of experience of truth and of love that man would never have been able to reach it in earthly life.” Pope John Paul II added. (Theology of the Body, 67.4) 

Wow.

I used to visit an elderly woman in the nursing home who wept when she remembered her beautiful home before they incarcerated her in a tiny room. I used to console her by reminding her that what was ahead — the future life — would make her lovely expensive hacienda look like a trashy low-rent motel. "Eye has not seen, ear has not heard nor has it entered the mind of man what God has prepared for those who love." (1Cor 2:9)

One of the consoling aspects of this theology based on Jesus statement, “they will take neither wife nor husband,” is that we retain our male, female form in the next life. The soul forms the body. The integrated soul and body is either female or male. If we are no longer male and female in the resurrection, then why would Christ bother to tell us “they take neither wife nor husband.”

“The words, take neither wife nor husband, seem to affirm that human bodies, which are recovered and also renewed in the resurrection will preserve their specific masculine or feminine character and that the meaning of being male or female in the body will be constituted differently in the other world than it it had been “from the beginning” and then in its earthly dimension.” (Theology of the Body, 66.4) So “from the beginning” refers to the Fall of Adam and Eve. The human body was not subject to corruptibly before the Fall as it is now, and it will be spiritualised in its resurrected form. But it will still be male and female. No sex change operation in this life will change that reality.


Perhaps the most compelling and consoling
paragraphs about the future life in Theology of the Body come from a commentary on 1Corinthians 15. (Theology of the Body, 70-72)


"But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.(1Corinthians 15:35-44)
So, Paul says, there is a natural body, and there is a supernatural body. Then he draws the analogy between the first Adam and the last Adam Christ. 
“The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven...And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man.” (1Cor 15:47-49)
Look in the mirror. See the Face of the glorified Christ. There is your future, dear man.


St. Paul actually encountered the Person of Jesus Christ in his glorified Body on the road to Damascus. Based on that experience, he  wrote that in the resurrection, the body will
be “imperishable, glorious, full of power, spiritual.”  The historical man — namely us — is subject to the “slavery of corruption.” (Rom 8:21) “To this slavery of corruption the whole of creation is indirectly subjected because of the sin of man, who had been placed by the Creator in the midst of the visible world that he might dominate.” (Theology of the Body, 70.8)
So we read the whole of creation “waits with eager longing for the revelation of the sons of God.” Wake up. That is your bell ringing, dear baptised and sanctified human kind! “and (creation) cherishes the hope that it itself will be set free from the slavery of corruption to enter into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” (Rom 8:19-21)
Remember the Prologue of the Gospel of John defines those children as those “who did accept him.”  He gave power to them to become children of God. They believe in the “name of him who was born not out of human stock or urge of the flesh or will of man but of God himself.” (John 1:12-13) And so in our re-birth in Baptism we are born anew -- not out of human will or urge of the flesh, but of God Himself. And having been faithful to God during our lives, in our death, we are reborn into a spiritualised body full of power. 
But in our humanity today, we carry within ourselves as did Adam and Eve the “particular potentiality (capacity and readiness) for receiving all that the second Adam became, the heavenly Man, namely Christ; what He became in His Resurrection.” (Theology of the Body, 71.3)
St. Paul agrees, “Just as we have borne the image of the man of earth, we will bear the image of the heavenly man.” (1Cor 15:29)
So the pope concludes that the same humanity, which seems to be in dishonour in this life, nevertheless carries within itself the desire for glory, the tendency and capacity to become “glorious” in the image of the risen Christ (Theology of the Body, 71.3)
So, go ahead. Look in the mirror. You are weak, sinful and often sick in this life, but someday you will be riding high with the Sons of the Resurrection.

Riding with the sons of the Resurrection, the communion of saints
Standing at the coffin of my Aunt Breta, I told my little son, James, about the Resurrection. Seeing her in death, he became disturbed. “Mother, when is she going to wake up?”
From our perspective in this life, James, it seems to take awhile. 

Soul Meets Body
(sung by Death Cab for Cutie written by Benjamin Gibbard)

I want to live where soul meets body
And let the sun wrap its arms around me and
Bathe my skin in water cool and cleansing
And feel
Feel what it's like to be new
'Cause in my head there's a Greyhound station
Where I send my thoughts to far off destinations
So they may have a chance of finding a place where they're
Far more suited than here
I cannot guess what we'll discover
When we turn the dirt with our palms cupped like shovels
But I know our filthy hands can wash one another's
And not one speck will remain
I do believe it's true
That there are roads left in both of our shoes
But if the silence takes you
Then I hope it takes me too
So brown eyes I'll hold you near
'Cause you're the only song I want to hear
A melody softly soaring through my atmosphere
Where soul meets body
Where soul meets body
Where soul meets body
I do believe it's true
That there are roads left in both of our shoes
But if the silence takes you
Then I hope it takes me too
So brown eyes I'll hold you near
'Cause you're the only song I want to hear
A melody softly soaring through my atmosphere
A melody softly soaring through my atmosphere
A melody softly soaring through my atmosphere
A melody softly soaring through my atmosphere