One of the most stressful things I have experienced is being an altar server at an Ordination Mass. Not only do you have the eyes of the people on you, but also the eyes of all the seminarians, who know exactly when you make a mistake. One of the first times I served at an Ordination, I had the easy job of simply holding the bishop’s miter. All I had to do was wait for the Master of Ceremonies to tell me when to carry it over. During the actual Ordination Rite, we all had to come to the front of the sanctuary. The MC said to me, “Stay here, and I’ll tell you when to go back,” and then he walked away to do something else. I dutifully stayed in place, but noticed a second too late that everyone else was walking away, leaving me standing in the front of the church alone. Since the MC had disappeared, I followed everyone else in deep embarrassment.

In the Gospel, Jesus says, “Remain in my love.” When we hear the word “remain,” we think Jesus is saying something like what the MC said to me: “Stay here.” But Jesus doesn’t just tell us to “stay here” while He abandons us. He instead calls us to remain in friendship with Him, especially through prayer.

As we remain in prayer with Jesus, it might feel like we are doing nothing. In reality, we are allowing Jesus to work in us. This weekend, we have the great joy of celebrating our First Communions, and one of the most important things the First Communicants learn is transubstantiation—the change by which the bread and wine truly become the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ. But as Christ comes to us in the Eucharist and we remain with Him, He also works a transformation in us. He changes us to become more and more like Him.

As He transforms us to become more like Him, then we are able to “bear fruit that will remain.” This fruit remains, not because of anything we do, but because of Christ working in us. One way that we can become more aware of Christ’s Presence in us even as we leave the church is through a simple examination of conscience. All we have to do is pray, “Jesus, am I remaining in Your love?” The difference here is not that we’re focusing on what we did, but how we are remaining in relationship with Jesus, and the fruit will naturally grow from there.

When Jesus tells us to remain in His love, He isn’t telling us to stay here while He goes off to do something else like the MC did to me at the Ordination, but He wants us to stay with Him. As we remain in that friendship with Him, may we allow Jesus to transform us to become more like Him so that we can bear fruit that will remain.

Father Frank

What does it mean to be a disciple? In today’s first reading, it is Sauls’ boldness in Christ that makes the other Christians finally acknowledge him as a disciple. That boldness is a quality we are also called to have.

In the second reading, we hear of Jesus’ commandment to believe in him and love one another as he commanded us. This commandment has two features, which we might be tempted to separate into two commandments, but it is a singular directive. We are told that our faith should bear fruit in our works, especially in the way we love others. Our faith should find expression in our actions. To believe in Christ is to entrust yourself to Christ. It would be odd to believe in Christ and not obey him. Rather, to not obey would shed light on an area in yourself that Christ needs to be brought into, and that other brothers and sisters should be consulted about. Therefore, the disciples of Christ obey his commandments, and that obedience is proof of their faith.

The Gospel continues with the imagery of vines, branches, fruit, and pruning. Jesus makes the point through this imagery that it is impossible to grow in holiness without also producing good fruit for others. The Gospel takes a frightening turn when it says that anyone who does not remain in Christ will be thrown into a fire like dead branches! As previously mentioned, faith and works go together as one. Thus, believing in Christ but refusing to do anything he asks us to do for our own good is the same as rejecting Christ. Perhaps we are not rejecting him entirely, but the invitation is to completely surrender ourselves to Christ and trust in him. In the same respect, he has already given himself entirely to us. The disciple is, therefore, dependent on Jesus and his grace. This leads to a deep unity, which bears much fruit.

As a man who has committed himself to Christ, is seeking to be his disciple, and strives to make others his disciples, this Gospel reminded me of many of the fears I had when surrendering to God and entering priestly formation. One of the fears I had was that in configuring myself to Christ, I would become a different person. Perhaps I would become a priest who prays abundantly, but has little personality left afterwards. While I have changed in many respects, the Lord has pruned certain aspects of my life to make me more fruitful. All those moments of pruning and letting go of things has resulted in deep happiness. I am becoming who God truly created me to be. It is when I begin to reach for that which has been pruned away, that I often lose my peace. My invitation today is to ask Jesus a hard question: “Jesus, are you asking me to do something in order to love you more?”

Jonathan Hernandez

When I was in eighth grade, we had that classic project where we would be given a baby doll to take home with us for a weekend to experience what it was like to be a parent. The baby would cry randomly, especially in the middle of the night, and we had to make sure we were there to touch a special wristband to its back to stop the crying. I was a very dedicated “parent,” taking the baby with me to Mass, Confession, and a friend’s house. The only hiccup was that my sister broke off the baby’s leg. Somehow that did not cause the baby to cry, and we were able to reattach it without any problem. I even got 100% on the project. But this project missed the point.

If we made a list of all the sacrifices that parents have to make for their children—getting up in the middle of the night to soothe a crying baby, changing diapers, giving up their free time—I don’t think many people would be eager to do that. But a child is not simply a list of sacrifices. Fathers and mothers say yes to these because they love their children.

This is why St. John describes the love of God as the love of a loving Father for His children. But living for others, laying down our lives for others, making sacrifices for others, is hard. We only find the strength to live this way through love, both the love we received from Christ and the love we have for others.

There is one sacrifice which parents are called to make which often gets ignored, and that is passing on the faith. The Church tells us that parents are called to be the first teachers of the faith to their children. This is a great responsibility, and it might seem daunting at first, but what it boils down to is that parents must first know the love of the Good Shepherd so that they can bring their children into that love.

Here at Our Lady of Mercy, our faith formation model is different from what you might find at most other parishes in that it is based around the family. This means that when the children come for formation, the parents also receive formation at the same time. But the goal is that the formation doesn’t stay in that classroom. The goal is that both parents and children can encounter the love of the Good Shepherd here, and take that love home with them. On the weekend of April 20th and April 21st, we will have an open house so that you can learn more about Family Faith Formation here at Our Lady of Mercy. And thankfully, there will not be any baby dolls involved.

Father Frank

From our daily confessions, which are many, to our week long confessions during the 5th week of Lent, our long Holy week confession lines, and our Divine Mercy service confessions, you would think that as a priest I would say, “Ok, no more confessions please!” However, I know that I will always both promote, and seek out the beautiful Sacrament myself. This is not only because it has a tremendous impact on my life, or because I’ve been consecrated as a priest of Jesus Christ to offer the Sacrament and forgiveness of sins. At an
even more fundamental level, our Gospel today points out that repentance and forgiveness of sins is the foundation of our Church, and needs to be proclaimed to the whole world (cf. Luke 24:47).

In our first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, St. Peter recounts our Lord’s Passion to the crowds gathering after he performed a healing in the temple. He recalls the Israelite people choosing Barabbas, a murderer, over Jesus. What was St. Peter doing? He was encouraging those listening to “repent so that there can be forgiveness of sins” (cf. Acts 3:19). Barabbas has an interesting meaning in Scripture. Bar means “son of” and Abba means “father.” Hence, Israelite people were making a choice: which son of the father they would follow. Will they follow Barabbas, who followed his selfish passions, or Jesus, who surrenders himself completely as a self-gift?

This same choice is offered to us every day. How many of us choose our own selfish desires over that of a sacrificial love like our Lord? And if we choose selfishness, what should our response be? Well, as the readings and Gospel point out, we need to repent (again) and receive the forgiveness of our sins (again)!

As we journey in our faith together, can I encourage you to see the Sacrament of Reconciliation as a gift that the Lord desires you to receive? It is not a punishment, but a reception of great joy and love. The Lord is patient with us and always merciful. He is moving us by His grace to grow ever closer to him in this Sacrament. In receiving his mercy and love, we are able to respond in
mercy and love to the world. Even with all our scheduled confessions times, as your pastor, I will always be open to finding more opportunities for the Sacrament of Reconciliation to be celebrated and received.

Father Michael

One of my first experiences as a seminarian was a retreat about healing, and I was pretty skeptical. They kept talking about how we had all these wounds that needed to be healed. And I didn’t doubt that I was a sinner, but I was skeptical that I had the kind of wounds they were talking about. I had a good childhood with maybe the usual bumps in the road of life, but nothing that I thought could qualify as a “wound.” As a result, by the end of the retreat, my heart had not been touched though my notebook was filled with some of the best doodles I had ever drawn.

In the Gospel, St. Thomas is absent when the Risen Jesus appears to the Apostles, and he gives the famous declaration that he will only believe if he touches the wounds of Christ. The problem with Thomas’s doubt is that he has the eyewitness testimony of his ten close friends to contend with. But I think we can all sympathize with Thomas to some extent. Speaking for myself, I had those who were in charge of my seminary training saying the healing retreat was a good idea, so if nothing else, I should have at least tried to be open to it.

In the following years, with the help of many spiritual guides in seminary, I made the discovery that I, like everyone else, have wounds! In fact, I became so aware of my wounds that I would joke, “I’m just a big, walking wound!” It was a joke, but I think it revealed where my heart was. Whereas before I was unaware of the wounds in my life, now I had gone to the opposite extreme of overemphasizing them. Nobody is simply their wounds. But how should we approach our woundedness?

Jesus Himself shows us when He shows us His wounds after His resurrection. Even though His wounds are used to identify Him, He is not saying that He is His wounds. Instead, He is saying that He is the One Who was wounded on the Cross, but is now victorious over sin and death. He is still wounded, but His wounds are now made glorious. His wounds have become a place of encounter.

This Sunday we celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday. Just as Jesus’ glorious wounds were a place of encounter for Thomas, so are our wounds a place of encounter with the mercy of Jesus. They are the place where He wants to encounter and heal us. And just like Himself, our wounds do not vanish, nor would we want them to. Instead, they remind us of the victory that He has won within us. As Pope St. John Paul II, the great Pope of Divine Mercy, says, “We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures; we are the sum of the Father’s love for us and our real capacity to become the image of his Son.”

Father Frank