Welcome to Finding God in Our Hearts. The following production Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is a weekly program of deep spiritual insight on Scripture, revealing the indwelling presence of God. Monsignor Fisher is a Catholic priest, a member of the Diocese of Dallas, and founder of the Pastoral Reflections Institute, a nonprofit in Dallas, Texas, dedicated to to enriching your spiritual journey. We appreciate your listenership and if you find this program valuable, please subscribe and share with your friends. This program is funded with kind donations by listeners just like you make your donation@pastoralreflectionsinstitute.com Good morning. Today we celebrate the sixth Sunday of Easter.
The opening prayer Grant Almighty God we may celebrate with heartfelt devotion these days of joy which we keep in honor of the risen Lord, that what we relive in remembrance we may always hold to in what we do through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen. A reading from the Acts of the apostles, 15th chapter, first and second verse, and the 22nd to the 29th verse. Some who had come down from Judea were instructing the unless you are circumcised according to the Mosaic practice, you cannot be saved. Because there arose no little dissension and debate by Paul and Barnabas. With them it was it was decided that Paul, Barnabas, and some of the others should go to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders about this question.
The apostles and elders, in agreement with the whole church, decided to choose representatives and to send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. The ones chosen were Judas, who was called Barsabbas, and Silas, leader among the brothers. This is the letter delivered by them, the apostles and elders, your brothers, to the brothers of Antioch, Syria, and cecilia of Gentile origin. Greetings. Since we have heard that some of your number who went out without any mandate from us have upset you with their teaching and disturbed your peace of mind, we have, with one accord, decided to choose representatives and to send them to you, along with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, who have dedicated their lives to the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. So we are sending Judas and Silas, who will also convey this same message by word of mouth.
It is the decision of the Holy Spirit and of us not to place on you any burden beyond those necessities, namely to abstain from meat sacrificed to idols, from blood, from meats of strangled animals, and from unlawful marriage. If you keep free of these, you will be doing what is right. Farewell. The Word of the Lord responsorial Psalm O Lord, let the nations praise you. A reading from St. John’s Book of the Revelation, 21st chapter, 10th to the 14th verse and 22nd to the 23rd verse.
The angel took me in spirit to a great high mountain and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem. Coming down out of heaven from God. It gleamed with the splendor of God. Its radiance was like that of precious stone, like Jasper, clear as crystal. Had a massive high wall with 12 gates where 12 angels were stationed and on which names were inscribed the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. There were three gates facing east, three north, three south and three west.
The wall of the city had twelve courses of stones as its foundation, on which were inscribed the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb. The city had no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gave it light. And its lamp was the Lamb. The word of the Lord. Hallelujah.
Verse. Whoever loves me will keep my word, says the Lord, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him. The Gospel for this Sunday is taken from St. John 14:23 29. Jesus said to his disciples, whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words.
Yet the word you hear is not mine, but that of the Father who sent me. I have told you this while I am with you. The advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have told you. Peace I leave you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you.
Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid. You heard me tell you I’m going away and I will come back to you. If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you this before it happens, so that when it happens, you may believe the gospel of the Lord. Satan. This Sunday is one of the Sundays of Easter.
Next Sunday we will celebrate the ascension Christ back to his Father, and then Pentecost, the birth of the Church, the birth of the coming of the Spirit that awakens our hearts to fathom and understand and grasp the mystery of God living in us and with us. Then we’re back to a couple other feasts in an ordinary time. So what I want to try to do, in my words today, is to summarize something that I believe is truly essential about everything that Jesus has brought into the world, particularly how he’s impacted our image of what religion is. We look at the first reading, and it’s fascinating because one of the shadows of religion is control. Controlling people, not awakening them to a life that they potentially, when seeing it, will want to follow it, not awakening them necessarily to this incredible mystery of God’s spirit dwelling in us, mingling with our humanity. But it sometimes comes back to simply telling us what to do, controlling our life.
And so this new thing, this Christianity, is out there, and it’s so exciting, and people are feeling that it’s about a being changed, not about being told what to do. And a group of converts, Jews that were converted to this new way of life felt it was not fair that those who were converting as Gentiles didn’t have to go through all the things that the law required of them. And they were saying, well, they should be circumcised. They should follow the rules, the laws. And what they wouldn’t grasp, couldn’t grasp. No, salvation is a gift.
It’s a gift. It’s won for us by someone. It’s not earned. And I thought it so fascinating when I listen to the reaction of the people, to this group of people who come and say, no, you have to be circumcised, have to follow our rules. But they heard and what was perhaps actually expressed, expressed in this passage, unless you do this, you can’t be saved. Does that sound familiar?
Unless you join our church, you can’t be saved. That’s what I learned as a Catholic. That idea was shattered in the Vatican Council. It was so dramatic. I think most people just sort of didn’t hear it. But it’s not saying that all religions are the same.
It’s saying that any religion that holds the truth, that teaches the truth, is valuable and it’s a source of salvation. The truth is what saves people, not a particular domination. And the more the denomination reflects the truth of the gospel, the more true it is to what Christianity is. And so we have this image that is there in the very beginning. Why? Why would we think it’s not going to be there all the time?
I mean, it’s like that’s the shadow of religion controlling people, telling them, unless you do what we say, you are not going to find favor with God. We are in charge of that relationship. But the interesting thing is there’s something in human nature that knows the Truth, even though it hasn’t been fully understood and explained by the gift of the Holy Spirit. And so when we’re told something, it just. I don’t know, we don’t know exactly why it’s wrong, but it doesn’t feel right. It upsets us and we’re kind of afraid.
And that’s what’s so interesting about this first reading. It’s reminding us that in religion there is a shadow of people in authority deciding what we must do in order to receive the favor of God. And when we’re told we can’t receive the favor of God and it doesn’t seem to make any sense to our own sense of who God is, then, yeah, there’s a lot of anxiety and a lot of fear. So we see in that first reading a description of something that we need to be conscious of and aware of and careful not to fall into its trap. Now, the second reading gives John’s incredible mind. I mean, he just had these visions and if you’re like me, a visual person, they’re so rich.
I mean, I just can feel. Just see what he was seeing and then hear the meaning behind it. But what he’s saying is, all right, he sees this new religion, this new Christian, let me call it Christianity, as opposed to a narrow view of a controlling institution which I’ll call religion. But then he looks, and what he sees is a new city. And where does it come from? It comes from heaven.
What is heaven? Heaven is the place of the truth. So coming from heaven is this image of the way we are called to live in a relationship with God and each other. And it’s magnificent. It’s beautiful, and it’s like a stone. Jasper and I had to look up what Jasper’s qualities are as a stone.
And it’s really interesting. It’s not something you can’t see through it, but it’s filled with all different colors. But it’s been attributed with the power of helping somebody be really grounded in the earth and in reality. Very strong stone. And here’s this image of the reality of God’s relationship with us. The Earth is the real, kind of grounded, not inflated sort of thing we can do with our imaginations.
But it’s the truth. And it’s transparent or it’s translucent. It’s filled with light. No need for sun, no need for moon. Whatever it is, this is a place of enlightenment. And what it’s founded on is so interesting.
The number 12 comes up often as a. As we know, it’s one of those Perfect numbers. A very interesting, important number. 12, two 12 hour sections that make up a day, time wise, 12 months out of the year. 12 zodiac signs or whatever. I don’t know if it’s 12 zodiac signs or 12 Chinese signs, but whatever.
12 is amazing. And so what we see is this city is a community circled by a wall. And the wall has these foundation is based on these 12 apostles. And it’s so interesting. The apostles were, they were learners and then they became. Now it’s the other way around.
Let’s erase that. I’ll start back up again. The wall is founded on these 12 apostles. Interesting. That means the apostles are people who had a direct experience with God’s presence in Jesus. And so it’s like this city is founded on this incredibly important thing called the experience of knowing God in a, in a way of experiencing his presence.
And then it’s a building that, that has this energy in it and it flows out, it flows out in, in every direction, north, east, south, west. To whom? To, to these portals that are guided and protected by angels, which is the 12 tribes of Israel, which is, you know, in a way the church. Everyone, every human being. And the overwhelming thing that’s so beautiful in this image is that there’s no temple. No temple, no little place inside of a big building that is run by human beings who determine who is able to come in and who is able to receive.
It’s that shadow of religion. We own it. And we will ask you to do what you have to do in order to get whatever you need from this God. But we, we have him. We have him, he’s ours. And then we hear Jesus in the gospel talking to his disciples and saying, you know, this Christianity that I’m establishing for you, it’s, it’s all about me dwelling inside of.
We will dwell with you. My Father will come and dwell with you. And what happens when divinity is in your humanity, your humanity is enlightened. We don’t know what the potential of humanity is. We have so many extreme cases of people in the world being able to do things that are just absolutely beyond anything we could imagine. Particularly autistic children can do things.
There’s a man, I heard it was on the Internet or something, but I saw he went over the city of Manhattan in a helicopter, maybe 40 minute ride or something, came back and had a 19 foot long canvas and a sharpie pen and completely redrew all the buildings in Manhattan in perfect proportion. A human. So when we talk about God’s presence in us, awakening the full potential of our humanity. We may be like one tenth of the way that we’re going to eventually be. But what it is, what I want you to feel, is when this indwelling presence is there, we are evolving more into the fullness of what humanity can be. And I would call that consciousness.
And the person that we’re given, the presence in us that’s given, that’s different a little bit than the Father and the Son is the spirit that awakens our imaginations to what this relationship with the Father and the Son inside of us is really going to do. Amazing. So with that is an image that I’m trying to depict of what it is we believe in. We as Christians, and particularly those of us who are Catholic, we believe in this beautiful, beautiful way in which God has described his. His relationship with us. And it’s so different than the one from the Old Testament.
But one thing you have to always remember about the Old Testament, you know, it began 6,000 years ago, and that’s when Adam and Eve were created. And then 4,000 years ago, there was Abraham. And, you know, I don’t know. I used to think as a child that those people were just like us. Well, I don’t think they were. I think they were much less evolved and definitely more violent.
And when you see God of the Old Testament dealing with them and he uses a lot of control, do this or I’ll kill you. Do that or I will punish you. But isn’t that the way children have to be treated? And in a way, we were all children then, and rules and laws were important. But, oh, how important it is to let go of that old image of our relationship with God and welcome the new one. It isn’t based on a law, but it’s based on presence.
It’s not based on obedience, but about responding to what God has given us. And when we see what he’s given us, it’s so much about accepting us and supporting us and not causing us any undue stress or pressure and giving us peace and giving us a kind of fearless life. And what a beautiful image that we have in that. And yet so often we confuse it by the people who get in charge. And I’m one of them. I mean, it’s a shadow of being a minister that you sort of.
You’re in control of the place. You know, you control whether you build something new or you don’t or whether you spend money here, spend money there. And then it just flows over into the way we tend to maybe direct people. And we say no, this is the only way. Do this or you’re not a member here. Or do this and you can’t be saved.
And it’s just, I’m embarrassed to say, I get caught in it. We all do. But it’s all about that demon called control. You know, people don’t want to be control when they reach a certain level of evolution. They want to be, want to be believed in. And all God is asking, he says, if you’ll just believe.
Have faith in what I am, who I am, what I am to you, how much my affection and my love is there for you and how much I respect your freedom. And I want you to respond freely to everything I am offering. I don’t want to force you into anything, but just believe in me. Have faith in me. That means having faith not in a set of rules and laws, but in a relationship. A relationship of incredible intimacy and honesty and truth.
That’s the heart of being a Christian. Closing Prayer Father Free us from everything that keeps us from understanding who you are, what your intention is with us, how you long for an intimate relationship with us where we’re truly transparent and honest. Help us never to be afraid of surrendering to you. It’s not a loss of our freedom, it’s a surrender to what we’re made for. So bless all ministers like me and keep us free from that temptation to control instead of to awaken, to somehow take people’s freedom away and create fear instead of giving them the peace and the joy that is your gift to all of us. And we ask this in Jesus name.
Amen. The music in our program was composed and produced by Ryan Harner for this show. Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher, a listener supported program, is archived and available on our website pastoralreflectionsinstitute.com and available anytime, anywhere and for free on our podcast, Finding God in Our Hearts. You can search and subscribe to Finding God in Our Hearts anywhere you download your podcasts. Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is funded with kind donations by listeners just like you. You can make a one time or recurring tax deductible donation on our website pastoralreflectionsinstitute.com we thank you for your listenership and your continued support.
Without it, this program would not be possible. Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is a production of the Pastoral Reflections Institute, a NonProfit in Dallas, Texas dedicated to enriching your spiritual journey. Executive Producer Monsignor Don Fisher produced by Kyle Cross and recorded in Pastoral Reflections Institute Studios. Copyright 2020.
