Wednesday, April 17, 2024

HOMILY 3RD SUNDAY OF EASTER YEAR B

 

Deacon Jerry Franzen        April 14, 2024             Cathedral

Acts 3:13-15, 17-19             1 John 2:1-5a              Luke 24:35-48

 

Praised Be Jesus Christ!  Good Morning

At our Baptism, we received the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit:

knowledge, understanding, wisdom, counsel, fortitude,

 fear of the Lord.

These gifts were then strengthened with the further infusion

of the Holy Spirit at Confirmation.

They are to help us to improve our relationship with God.

Knowledge, understanding and wisdom, are the first three.

They are different and yet connected.

Consider the recent eclipse.

People knew the date, time and locations to view the eclipse

and not to view the eclipse with the naked eye.

They had that knowledge.

Many people had the understanding that looking directly at the sun 

could focus the power of sunlight directly on the retina of your eyes

and damage your eyes.

Many people had gained the wisdom to use the approved glasses

to be able to directly watch the progress of the eclipse safely.

Knowledge is what we grasp from reality and store in our intellect

to be used as needed.

Understanding involves why things are the way they are.

And wisdom uses knowledge and understanding to make correct decisions.

In the spiritual world, these words have similar meanings in our

 relationship with God.

The gift of knowledge prompts us to learn more facts about God.

The gift of understanding prompts us to learn more about why God is 

the way He is and why He does what He does.

And the gift of wisdom prompts us to make the right decisions based on

what we know and understand about God.

Knowledge, understanding and wisdom in the spiritual realm must be

grounded in our faith in God.

I


In the reading from the Acts of the Apostles, Peter said:

“Now I know, brothers, that you acted out of ignorance,

just as your leaders did.”

The implication is that IF the Jewish people had known that Jesus

 was the Messiah, He would not have been put to death.

In the second reading, John wrote,

”The way that we may be sure that we know him (Jesus ) is to keep

his commandments.”

In the spiritual realm, the measure of the degree to which

we really know Jesus lies in what we do.

So we might ask to what degree do WE make the wise decision

to follow Jesus by keeping the commandments

and following the Church’s teachings.

 

We should know a lot about Jesus.

We hear Jesus every Sunday; we have no excuse for ignorance,

no excuse  for not knowing or not understanding

that Jesus is our Messiah, our King, our Savior.

AND we should always be striving to know Him more fully.

But the real test of knowing Jesus is not what is in our minds;

not in our knowledge or understanding; it is in what we do,

in what decisions we make.

We should know and understand the commandments of God

and the truths of the Catholic faith.

Knowing and understanding should be the basis

for what we decide to do.

                                                            II

 In the spiritual world, the world of faith, the gift of knowledge helps us

to see our lives in the way God sees them, but in a limited way.

The gift of understanding helps us to ascertain God’s reasons

for placing us in our particular circumstances.

So how do we go about increasing our knowledge and understanding

of Jesus so we can make the right decisions?

Jesus, in today’s Gospel reading, gives us two paths:

1.“He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.”

We can better know Jesus through reading, studying and

contemplating the Scriptures.

 

2. He “was made known to them in the breaking of the bread.”

We can better know Jesus through what we do here today.

 First, we get to know Jesus better at the table of His Word.

The “Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy,”  a document of the Second

Vatican Council, has a startling sentence:

“God is present in His word, since it is He Himself who speaks

when the Holy Scriptures are read in church.”

We are so accustomed to the real presence of Jesus under the forms

of bread and wine at Mass, that we may hesitate to speak of the real

 presence of Jesus in the proclaimed Word.

 

When the lector proclaims God’s Word in the first two readings and

the priest or I, proclaim the Gospel, God is speaking. 

The words are of John or Paul or Luke, but they are inspired by God.

Through these words God speaks to us.

The question is “How do these words affect our actions?”

“What is our response?”

We heard today a selection from Acts,  NOT to learn that some people,

who did not know Jesus, had crucified Him.

 But maybe God wanted us to hear about their ignorance so

WE would be challenged to consider our own ignorance of Jesus.

Maybe it was a broader challenge to our love for Jesus and our readiness

 to follow Him.

 I say, “Maybe” because I should not be telling you what you heard.

I don’t know what you heard; but I do know that God

was speaking to you.

To hear the Lord, you cannot be passive and listen like one might listen

 to a baseball game on the radio or a book on disk.

You must listen with your heart, a heart that prompts a response.

That is how people listened to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,

 how young people of the past once listened to the peaceful protest songs

of Joan Baez, as people now listen to the homilies of Pope Francis,

listening as a heart speaking to a heart.

 

Secondly, we are also brought into a deeper relationship with Jesus

at the Lord’s table.

We offer Jesus to the Father as the sacrifice for our salvation.

When we receive Jesus in Holy Communion, we are united

in the Body of Christ with Jesus as the Head.

We are challenged to take our part in the Body of Christ.

Both the Word and the Eucharist should help us to know Jesus better,

help us to see our lives as God sees them and to ascertain why God

has placed us where we are in His plan.

That should show us the way to do what we are to do.

                                                         III


What we experience at Mass and what we read in Scripture

are just first steps; these must be translated into action.

The Israelite knew with the heart.

To know God was to experience God, to recognize Him in his words

AND his deeds –

from the parting of the Red Sea,  to  simply “Samuel, Samuel.”

from the covenant on Sinai  to the “still quiet voice” speaking to Elijah

(1 Kgs 19:12).

Each of these experiences prompted a response:

Praise for parting the sea, “Your servant is listening.” by Samuel

Obeying the commandments of Sinai and Elijah went to the cave

for more instructions.

         

To really know God is to experience God and to respond.

It’s not just listening but also responding in justice and charity.

It’s following God in faith and in action, opening our hearts

to further submissiveness, yearning for what is beyond.

To know God, then, is not a question of clearer vision or more words;

it means responding by delving deeper into how to follow Our Lord.

                  

*Based loosely on a homily by Walter J. Burghardt, S.J. in “Still Proclaiming Your Wonders” Paulist Press New York 1984 pp 84-89