{"id":1605,"date":"2015-05-17T13:06:04","date_gmt":"2015-05-17T17:06:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=1605"},"modified":"2015-05-17T13:06:04","modified_gmt":"2015-05-17T17:06:04","slug":"7th-sunday-of-easter-year-b-homily","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/7th-sunday-of-easter-year-b-homily\/","title":{"rendered":"7th Sunday of Easter, Year B – Homily"},"content":{"rendered":"

7th<\/sup> Sunday of Easter, Year B<\/a>
\nActs of the Apostles 1:15-17, 20a, 20c-26
\n1 John 4:11-16
\nJohn 17:11b-19
\nMay 17, 2015<\/p>\n

Today we hear Jesus praying.\u00a0 Shortly He will be arrested and crucified.\u00a0 He is fully aware of this so we might expect Jesus\u2019 prayer to be all about Him.\u00a0 Jesus could have prayed that He not be arrested and crucified.\u00a0 He could have prayed for it to be pain free.<\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Instead He is praying for us, \u201cso that they be one just as we are one.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0 Why would He be praying for us when He is about to die?<\/p>\n

The answer is simple – because He loves us!<\/p>\n

Jesus is Son of God, seated at the right hand of the Father.\u00a0 He is consubstantial with the Father.\u00a0 He has nothing to gain from us.\u00a0 Everything Jesus does is motivated by His love for us.<\/p>\n

Jesus is born just like one of us so that we may know God\u2019s love.\u00a0 That love is ultimately expressed in His Crucifixion for no one has greater love than to lay down one\u2019s life for one\u2019s friends.\u00a0 Jesus\u2019 life is not taken from Him.\u00a0 He freely gives His life for us out of love.\u00a0 So when we look at a Crucifix, we see Jesus\u2019 showing His love for us.<\/p>\n

Of course, we know that Jesus\u2019 did not \u201cremain dead.\u201d\u00a0 On Easter Morning He rose from the dead.\u00a0 No one had risen from the dead before.\u00a0 The disciples didn\u2019t know what it meant to rise.\u00a0 Jesus, once again acting out of love, appears to His disciples body and soul so that we all might know what it means to rise.\u00a0 When it was time for Him to return to Heaven, He allowed His disciples to see Him ascend so that we would know what happened to Him.\u00a0 All this is in our Creed and all this Jesus does because He loves us.<\/p>\n

Going back to Easter, we celebrated a triduum.\u00a0 That means three days.\u00a0 We talked about Good Friday and Easter but we also need to talk about Holy Thursday and the love that Jesus showed for us that night.<\/p>\n

He washed the feet of His disciples.\u00a0 He did this because He loved them.\u00a0 It is also the night Jesus gave us the Eucharist.<\/p>\n

The word \u201cEucharist\u201d is a Greek word that literally means \u201cthanksgiving.\u201d\u00a0 Certainly, we should be thankful for all that Jesus has done for us.<\/p>\n

The word \u201cEucharist\u201d has also come to signify something very special to us as Catholics.\u00a0 Jesus takes<\/em> ordinary bread and ordinary wine and transforms them into His Body and Blood.\u00a0 We call this transubstantiation<\/em>.\u00a0 It\u2019s a word we never hear any other time except with the bread and wine but that\u2019s because there is nothing like it.<\/p>\n

In receiving the bread and wine, we are actually receiving the Body and Blood of Jesus<\/em>.\u00a0 Some Christians don\u2019t believe this.\u00a0 We don\u2019t see a change.\u00a0 It stills looks like bread and wine.\u00a0\u00a0 It still tastes like bread and wine.\u00a0 How do we know it is changed?<\/p>\n

Because Jesus said so.<\/p>\n

Jesus himself says this is my body, this is my blood<\/em> which will be poured out for you<\/em>.\u00a0 That\u2019s what Jesus does in His Crucifixion.\u00a0 So each and every time we celebrate the Eucharist, we receive the Body and Blood of Jesus but we also remember Jesus\u2019 dying on the Cross.<\/p>\n

Well, I say remember but what we do today isn\u2019t just \u201cremembering.\u201d\u00a0 Jesus is all powerful and all-knowing so that in a way we can\u2019t understand, Jesus makes present today what happened almost 2,000 years ago.<\/p>\n

So as we celebrate this Eucharist we must remember the love that Jesus has shown for us.<\/p>\n

In a few minutes, the bread and wine will be brought forth and I will say the Eucharistic Prayer where the bread and wine will become the Body and Blood of Jesus.\u00a0 After that, we will receive Communion so that just as the bread is transformed into the Body of Christ, we too are become one body<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The Eucharist gives us strength to live as Jesus teaches.\u00a0 It makes us one.\u00a0 Remember Jesus prayer \u201cso that they may be one as we are one<\/em>\u201d?<\/p>\n

Strengthened by what we receive may we truly be one body in Christ.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

7th Sunday of Easter, Year B Acts of the Apostles 1:15-17, 20a, 20c-26 1 John 4:11-16 John 17:11b-19 May 17, 2015 Today we hear Jesus praying.\u00a0 Shortly He will be arrested and crucified.\u00a0 He is fully aware of this so we might expect Jesus\u2019 prayer to be all about Him.\u00a0 Jesus could have prayed that …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘7th Sunday of Easter, Year B – Homily’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[82],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-pT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1605"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1605"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1606,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1605\/revisions\/1606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}