Homily
for April 23, 2006
Liturgical Year B-Cycle II
2nd Sunday of Easter
Liturgical Year B-Cycle II
2nd Sunday of Easter
by
Fr. John Carney
Topic: What you should know
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Topic: What you should know
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Do you believe that Jesus is Lord and God?
(No response)
Do you believe that Jesus is Lord and God?
Yes! (Response from the Church)
(Father taps the mike) It’s working now.
Blessed are you because you have not seen and yet you believe. That’s really good news. I think you know how much I love these First Holy Communion Sundays. Part of the reason I enjoy them so much is that the children write most of the homily for me. I get kind of a week off as far as preparation goes. Of course, we always know that kids say the darnedest things. You parents know that. You don’t know what they’re going to come out with, especially the boys. Isn’t that true? The girls will be trouble later. Believe me.
Recently, I read this story on that subject about kids saying things. After the baptism of his baby brother in Church, Jason sobbed all the way home in the backseat of the car. His father asked him three times what was wrong. Finally the boy replied, “The priest said he wanted us brought up in a Christian home but I wanted to stay with you guys”.
This year we asked the children why they were looking forward to receiving their First Holy Communion. You remember we asked you that question and you each wrote me a letter, didn’t you? Each one of the letters said:
Dear Father John Carney:
I am looking forward to First Eucharist because…
Rachel wrote: “I want to be closer to God”. Well that is great because when you receive the body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ in your body, you could not be any closer to God. Could you? That’s really close. God becomes part of you. She wrote, “I want to receive the body and blood of Christ”. And like about half a dozen other of the children, she wrote, “I don’t want to cross my arms anymore because they get tired”.
What she’s referring to is that children who don’t receive communion and they’re about nine years old, they cross their arms so the priest or the Eucharistic minister knows not to communicate them. We’ve got to come up with another way of doing this because they’re all complaining about it. I suggest you write the Monitor. You know, this could run for a month - get a lot of input from the community. Nevertheless, we don’t want to torture eight year olds.
Rachel also said, “and also I get to have cake. And I get together with my relatives and friends and we celebrate”. Is Rachel here? Oh, she’s at the
Breanna wrote, “I want to receive my First Holy Communion because I get to participate fully in the mass and I will not sin as much”. I wish it worked that way. She said, “I will be able to spread the love of Christ better”. She’s exactly right. In the old mass, I often mention, when we said the mass in Latin many years ago, the priest at the end would say, “Ite, missa est”, which meant: Go, you are sent. Go out there now and change the world. You’ve been enlightened with God’s word. You’ve been nourished with his body and blood; now do something with this power that God has given you, his presence in you, to bring Christ to that hungry world out there. We love that world out there. We don’t judge that world. We don’t condemn it. We don’t hate the world. We love the world because it is made by God, and Jesus came and gave his life to redeem the world and we have a part to play in that.
Marlie went Breanna a step better. She says, “I am looking forward to First Eucharist because I will stop sinning”. Good luck Marlie. Marlie are you here?
Michelle wrote: “I’m looking forward to First Eucharist so I can eat and drink the body and blood of Christ and to wear a white dress”. Michelle, are you here? 11:30. All those kids that sleep late come up with all this stuff here. She wants to wear a white dress. They really look forward to that and it’s good because we should dress up when we go to Church. We come here to worship and give glory to God and so we should wear our Sunday best, like you are wearing today.
Jacob wrote: “If I don’t receive First holy Communion this year I’ll have to wait until next year”. Jacob’s dad is no doubt an engineer. Is Jacob here? Jacob’s here. Your Dad’s not an engineer? Where’s dad? What do you do? Oh, it’s a different Jacob, okay. Yeah, right. Confessions are on Thursday.
Lucia and Jared. Jared’s here. Lucia’s going to be at the
Aletta said, “I will be able to get out of my seat and go and receive Jesus. And I want to see my godparents again. And I can set an example now for my little brother”. Aletta, are you here? Last night. And she’s exactly right and that pertains when you receive the fullness of the body and blood of Christ you should be changed. You should be different with Christ in you, Gregory, right? You should be. And so you bring that Christ out there and unite the
Finally Sam said, “I want to receive my First Eucharist so I won’t have to go to any more classes”.
You know when Jesus rose from the dead he appeared before his disciples and friends many times. Most of the time when he appeared before them he said, “Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid”. When our late Holy Father John Paul II began his leadership of the Catholic Church, he began by saying, “Do not be afraid”. Yet, the world, even people in the Church are full of fear. But you are not to be afraid as you walk through this beautiful light that’s in front of you. Now I don’t mean fear like falling over a cliff, or feel like you feel when you almost get into an accident. That’s good fear. That makes your body sharper and gives you power at that critical moment to survive. What I’m talking about is this stuff that adults do. They call it worrying. People worry too much. If you really believe Jesus is Lord and God, then I don’t understand how these people worry so much. Worrying never added a day to anyone’s life and it certainly doesn’t make them happy. To some degree, when you worry and are anxious, it indicates you really don’t trust Jesus.
Do you trust Jesus? Yes. So do not be afraid as you go through life. Now the Bible says that fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom but what that means is awesome respect for God because God is awesome. God is the creator. God is all-powerful, all- knowing, all present, all loving. God is awesome. That’s what the Jewish people meant in their scripture when they said that fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. When we look at creation alone and say, “Wow. God did this like that, from nothing, God is awesome and I am not God. I depend on God for every breath I take.” That is what fear of the Lord means. But never be afraid of Jesus.
See this picture up here? This is the picture of Jesus the Devine Mercy. Jesus is easy. He loves you and he will always forgive you. If you ever turn your back on him and walk away, when you turn around again, he’ll be there with his arms open to receive you home. Don’t ever forget that and don’t ever be afraid of Jesus. As a matter of fact, there’s only one person in the world that maybe you should be afraid of and that’s yourself because you’re the only one that can hurt yourself in the spirit and we call that sinning. When we sin, we turn our backs on God. So if you fear anything fear your own weakness. Bring that weakness to God. Confess and use that Sacrament of Confession. You have all been to First Confession, many of you have been to confession over the last several days, and your parents oftentimes came with you. Use the Sacrament of Confession because God gave it to you, as we heard in the Gospel today, as a gift.
Know this:
This is
your
Church.
Not only Immaculate Heart of Mary but
this Church is 1.1
billion of us. No matter where you go,
you’ll find your church. It is
yours. Even if you turn your back on her,
when you turn around to come home, her arms will be open. We love
you and we’re happy for you and we’re
so proud of you on this beautiful day.
You make us all happy. You give
us all great joy, especially today.