2025 May 11 SUN: FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER
Acts 13: 14. 43-52/ Ps 100: 1-2. 3. 5/ Rv 7: 9. 14b-17/ Jn 10: 27-30

In my junior year of high school at Decatur St. Teresa, I was in a religion course called Social Justice. And in that course I learned about the social teaching of the Catholic Church, which began in 1891 with a writing called Rerum Novarum, that is, "of new things." And in this document, the new things being treated were the changes in society having come about as the result of the Industrial Revolution. And this writing championed the rights of workers so that they might not find themselves as mere cogs in a money-making machine, but that they might be respected in the fullness of their humanity, in the depth of their gifts. This caught my attention because my father was a factory worker at the Decatur Plant of Caterpillar Incorporated. And this is what I needed to hear because I was thinking about the priesthood, but apparently I needed to hear something which would secure for me a sense of the credibility of the Church. And I found it when I heard about this social teaching. The Pope who issued Rerum Novarum in 1891 was Leo XIII. 

Now we have all experienced some amazing events in these past few days, and I can well imagine that you are expecting to hear from me something like, "Oh, Pope Leo, personal friend of mine." No. We are two years apart in age. The thing that we have to keep in mind is that we were on different tracks: he as a member of a religious order, the Augustinians, while I was studying to be a diocesan priest. And it is of some interest that there is some overlap. Two instances. I went to St. Louis in 1977 for my third and fourth years of college seminary. And in that same year, 1977, Pope Leo went to St. Louis for his novitiate period. And no, we did not run into each other. And then we were also studying canon law in Rome at the same time. But we were at two different universities. So there is no possibility of my claiming some kind of closeness. 

But I go back to the thing that sparked my sense of the credibility of the Church back when I was in high school. Robert Francis Prevost took the name Leo XIV because of what Leo XIII wrote about justice. And he said as much to the Cardinals yesterday. And for that reason, I feel a kinship with Pope Leo because our minds and our hearts are on the same thing. We want to see every human being in the world realizing their dignity first of all as being created by God the Father and by being lifted up by the love of Jesus for all of us. 

Now, our bulletin deadline is Tuesday. And I realized, well, I won't have anything about a new pope. And I suspected we'd have a new pope by Friday. Well, it came on Thursday. But I had the bulletin deadline. So I wrote something about the writings of Pope Francis. And it turns out again yesterday as he was addressing the Cardinals that the first apostolic exhortation of Pope Francis, which I mentioned on the front of the bulletin today, was also cited by Pope Leo yesterday. And he intends to continue all that Pope Francis has taught. I am grateful for that. 

Now, this happens to be Good Shepherd Sunday, quite aptly. And we have an account of the difficulties that Paul and Barnabas ran into in proclaiming the Good News. We also have a very joyful image from the Book of Revelation about all the people in white garments who have been washed in the Blood of the Lamb. And again, the Lamb who had been slain is at the center there. And then Jesus, speaking about shepherding, notes the fact that sheep are very good at distinguishing voices. And we pray that we, every one of us, will be attuned as we get to know this new pope and as we consider all the teaching of the People of God, the Church. That we will hear the voice of the Shepherd.

2025 May 4 SUN: THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER
Acts 5: 27-32. 40b-41/ Ps 30: 2. 4. 5-6. 11-12. 13 (2a)/ Rv 5: 11-14/ Jn 21: 1-19

Many people look upon the Book of Revelation as a rather forbidding sort of writing, full of things that can cause terror in people's hearts. But today we have an utterly joyful passage from Revelation. We have a description of heaven itself. And there is mention of the creatures of earth, all creatures, on land and in the sea. And in the center of it all is the Lamb that was slain. We need to think about this. The reason for the great joy is that the Lamb, who is Jesus, was slain, but has overcome death and lives forever. So this is the joyful image of heaven which we receive from the Book of Revelation. 

And as we turn to the other readings today, we see further cause for joy. In the Gospel we find Peter in some sense wishing that he could just disappear. And we're familiar with how he feels. He demonstrates embarrassment when John says it is the Lord. Peter is embarrassed. He says he needs to tuck in his garment. And it says also that he jumped into the water. Now, if he wanted to obscure his presence, he could have done one thing or the other. But he does both. And all of us who are familiar with our own embarrassment can recognize that we can have an exaggerated response to our sense of embarrassment.

Now, embarrassment is particularly tough because we feel powerless when we feel it. And we also feel its connection with shame. And we need to know that shame does not do us any good, whatever. If we feel guilt, we are saying to ourselves, "I did something wrong." But when it's shame that we feel, the message is, "I am something wrong." And that, of course, is something that we must allow to die within us.

Although we've heard that many times, it's not true. And if we experience embarrassment, it's uncomfortable just to feel that way. But we can also kind of torture ourselves by anticipating that we might be embarrassed somehow. And that keeps us in a state of tension which is definitely not creative tension. It is tension which damages us, really. And then we think of Jesus asking Peter three times, "Do you love me?" This is for Peter an occasion for embarrassment because he is remembering the three times he denied even knowing Jesus at the time of his arrest and his passion.

But Jesus is setting Peter free. He is telling him, "You can go forward and you can proclaim the good news of my death and resurrection." It's expressed in somewhat forbidding terms here that there will come a time, Jesus says, when you will be led where you do not want to go. And it's fitting for us at this time when the See of Peter is vacant that we consider what Peter did in laying down his life. And by tradition we understand that this was around between the years 64 and 67 on the Vatican Hill in Rome that Peter was crucified. And this was during the cruel reign of the Emperor Nero. And every successor of Peter, including the one we will probably receive later this week, every one of the successors of Peter is a human being with faults and sins.

Nevertheless, because of the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, we as a church have been able to carry on and not go completely wrong. And we see that Peter goes on in the Acts of the Apostles today to say, "We will obey God rather than men." They received their warning and they said, "We have to keep doing what we've been doing, proclaiming the good news of Jesus." So that was quite a step forward from wanting to sort of hide himself. He and the other apostles were happy to witness and we benefit from their witness. And in this season of Easter, we banish shame from our hearts and we embrace the joy of all that has been won by the Lamb who was slain, but who lives.