Second Sunday of Easter – 2024
Fr. Peter Robinson
Preached: April 7, 2024
This past week, I heard the heartbreaking story of an Afghani woman, living now as a refugee in Canada. She and her family fled from the Taliban to our country, but as they were leaving Afghanistan, her husband died of cancer. She continued on alone, into the unknown, with her three small children. Sadly, she arrived here with an illness that has left her half-blind. She now lives with her children in a small apartment with one bedroom. She is not a Christian, as you would guess, and she barely speaks English. However, one thing that comforts her is that her children are not growing up back home, under the repression and persecution of the Taliban.
Now, let’s bring our attention to our First Reading from the Book of Acts. We are travelling back almost 2000 years ago, to a time when the earliest followers of Jesus (living in Jerusalem) were surrounded with the aching needs of the poor. We catch a glimpse, in the Book of Acts, of the life of that earliest Christian community. What was it like? Our author, St. Luke, stresses in today’s text the unity of that Jesus-community, coupled with their mutual caring, so that no one in their parishes was in want.
As you know, this care of people in need (particularly in financial matters) remains a strong challenge for the Catholic Church today; just as care for the needy is a huge emphasis throughout the Bible. We see such care beginning with the earliest Law-codes of ancient Israel; and that focus continues through to the Letter of James near the close of the NT. And it continues beyond.
Why? What compelled the ancient Jewish people — as well as us Catholics today — to care for those with less? Why do our hearts, for example, immediately go out to a nameless stranger, from Afghanistan, who is on the very edge of poverty — right here in our own country?
Here our second Reading from the 1st Letter of John answers our question. The short answer is charity. But … there are two overarching aspects of Christian love, of charity; two aspects that are vital for genuine love.
1st, genuine charity is built on faith in Jesus as Son of God. You see, although we live in a beautiful world, there are dynamics in this world that are evil. There are god-less attitudes which stand in opposition to Christian values. Yet by raising Jesus from the dead, God has shown the vanity (the ultimate futility) of those attitudes. Rather, when we choose Jesus’ example, at all cost, we experience the victory of Christian love. This is not just the abstract or romantic notion of love, but the conquering of charity.
2nd, genuine love will see us resurrected at the end of this age, as daughters and sons of God. I often point out at funerals that the most important question we will ever answer is at the close of this life. When we stand before Jesus, and he asks each of us, “Why should I let you into my heaven?” what will we then say? Our favourite sports teams will be long gone; the house, the cottage, the new car will no longer matter; all of our relationships will have ended. So, our answer (our only answer) can be that our goal in life was to become like the Christ who is asking us that critical question.
You see, it is through our baptism that we become children of God. Through baptism we are able to cry “Abba, Father” — which was how an ancient Hebrew child addressed her or his father. What is more, as we do the works of charity in Jesus’ name, we become and more like him, too.
Where I grew up, south of Algonquin Park, almost invariably the old farmhouses and barns would have a lightning rod (a lightning conductor) on the metal roof. It was linked by a chain to the ground, where it was “grounded” or “earthed.” A lightning strike would follow the line of least resistance, and spare the wooden structure.
Using this illustration a Catholic mystical writer, that I enjoy, puts it this way: when our love remains open to God, and for long enough, then his Holy Spirit uses our love as a “spiritual lightning conductor” (as a lightning rod) to purify our hearts, and even our bodies. We become gradually “spiritualized” — that is, Christlike.
So, you see, as we live lives of charity, the resurrected Jesus lives his life, more and more, in your hearts and bodies and in mine. This means that, here in Hamilton, we too can become like that early Church in the Book of Acts …
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Torkington, David John. The Primacy of Loving: The Spirituality of The Heart (pp. 198-99). Collective Ink. Kindle Edition.
