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. We appreciate your listenership and if you find this program valuable, please subscribe and share with your friends. Share this program is funded with kind donations by listeners just like you. Make your donation@pastoralreflectionsinstitute.com Today we’re celebrating the fifth Sunday of Easter. The opening prayer Almighty ever living God, constantly accomplish the paschal mystery within us that those you are pleased to make new and holy baptism may under your protective care bear much fruit and come to the joys of life eternal through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God forever and ever.

Amen. A reading from the Acts of the Apostles sixth chapter, first the seventh verse as the number of disciples continued to grow, the Hellenists complained against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. So the 12 called together the community of the disciples and said, it’s not right for us to be neglecting the Word of God to serve a table. Brothers, select from among you seven reputable men filled with the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom he shall appoint to the task, whereas we shall devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the Word. The proposal was accepted to the whole community, so they chose Stephen, a man filled with faith in the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Procurus, Nicanus, Timas, Parmenas, and Nicholas of Antioch, a convert to Judaism. They presented these men to the apostles who prayed and laid hands on them, and the Word of God continued to spread and the number of the disciples in Jerusalem increased greatly.

Even a large group of priests were becoming obedient to the faith. The Word of the Lord his sponsorial psalm Lord, let your mercy be in us as we place our trust in you, exalt you just in the Lord. Praise from the upright as fitting. Give thanks to the Lord on the harp with the 10 stringed lyre chant his praises. Lord, your mercy be in us as we place our trust in you. Upright is the word of the Lord, and all his works are trustworthy.

He loves justice and right of the kindness of the Lord. The earth is full. Lord, let your mercy be on us as we place our trust in you. See, the eyes of the Lord are upon those who fear him, upon those who hope for his kindness to deliver them from death and preserve them in spite of famine. Lord, let your mercy be on us as we place our Trust in you. A reading from the New Testament from 1st Peter 2, 4:9.

Beloved, come to him. A living stone, rejected by human beings, but chosen and precious in the sight of God. And like living stones, let yourself be built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it says in Scripture, behold, I am laying a stone in Zion, A cornerstone, chosen and precious. And whoever believes in it shall not be put to shame. Therefore, its value is for you who have faith.

But for those without faith, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone and a stone that will make people stumble and a rock that will make them fall. They stumble by disobeying the Word, as is their destiny. You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own, that you may announce the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light, the word of the Lord. Hallelujah. I am the way, the truth and the life, says the Lord. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Hallelujah. The gospel for this Sunday is from John 14th chapter, first to the 12th verse. Jesus said to his disciples, do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God. Have faith also in Me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.

If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and take you to Myself, so that where I am, you also may be where I am going. You know the way. Thomas said to him, master, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way? Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you know Me, then you will also know my Father from now on, you do know him and have seen Him. Philip said to him, pastor, show us the Father and that will be enough for us. Jesus said to him, have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me? Philip, whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, show us the Father?

Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I speak to you, I do not speak on my own. The Father who dwells in Me is doing his work. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Or else believe because of the works themselves. Amen.

Amen. I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works That I do and will do greater ones than these because I’m going to the Father, the Gospel of the Lord. Take the next few moments as we listen to this music to ponder the images and the thoughts that come to you as you listen to these readings. These readings seem to me to be focused on the role of the church. Church is an interesting word. We tend to think of it as a building.

But the best description that I have of what the church really is came from Vatican Council. And basically, it says so clearly, whenever people are gathered and believe in God and are seeking his presence in their life, being aware of it and then sharing it with each other, that’s church. And yes, it needs a building. But the heart of every parish that I’ve ever been a part of or that I think is ever intended by God is that people there would grow into an awareness of very simple things, essential things. Who are they? What are we here for?

Who is this God? What does he want? And I think the most interesting thing in this first reading is that basically we’re looking at the early church realizing something about the nature of a community of human beings. And that is, are they able to do what they’re there for? What are they there for? To bring people out of darkness into light, to minister, to feed people with the Word, which is truth.

And in the very beginning, the church realizes it needs to do reflection on how well they’re doing that. And so we see that there is a group of people not really being nurtured, they’re being neglected. That’s the widows of the Greeks were accusing the Hebrews of not paying attention to them and not caring for them. And, you know, that seems to be. That’s been the situation with the church from the beginning, that we have to continually look at ourselves as a church and say, who are we neglecting or what are we neglecting? And so I believe in my own experience of the church, that they neglected to feed me something.

And maybe it’s true for you, maybe not. I hope it’s not. But we know from the beginning that the. The church’s call is to make clear the teaching of Jesus. And what that teaching is, is what we’re looking for, what we need to be fed. And I don’t believe I was ever fed the e of what I now know to be the ministry of Jesus.

It wasn’t about inviting me into a community that would require me of doing certain things that would then make me pleasing to God. I was really hooked into performance. Maybe that’s my personality. Maybe it’s the way the church came across to me. But I always felt like if I just stop doing stupid, unkind, breaking rules of the church, I would find this enormous peace. But there’s something that’s sort of connected to church in this second reading, and that is, you know, the church is usually made of a solid building.

It’s, you know, it’s a. Churches are large and very. I mean, we have cathedrals that are like the one in Milan is just overwhelming. But the image in this reading from Peter is the church is supposed to be something that is rooted in, grounded in, built on the foundation of a teaching. And the teaching isn’t about something to do, it’s about who someone is. And so the image in this is Peter saying, you know, we believe in a way of life that is based on the life of someone.

He’s a living foundation, not a rock foundation, but he’s living stone. And it’s interesting when you think of living stone, because living stone could be a way of comparing the message of Jesus in the New Testament and the way God presents himself in the Old Testament. And what he gave was commandments written on stone. So there’s an image of not living stone, but a stone with the requirements to be fulfilled. And this is a wonderful way of imagining how different the New Testament is from the Old Testament, because it’s not about law and justice, it’s about intimacy with God. And that’s a thing that I don’t think they fed me very much.

So in John’s Gospel, we have the heart of what I think the church is Jesus talking to his disciples and saying, you know, I’m leaving you. These are all. This is a discourse from the Last Supper. So he’s telling them not to be troubled because he knows that they are rooted and grounded in him, but personally and his teaching and his affection and his criticism at times. But what he’s wanting to say to them is, there’s something you need to know. I’m going to leave you now.

Because my role was to do something other than focus on me. I came into this world so that you would see and get to know someone. And when he starts talking about he’s going to return to this someone, this Father in heaven, this God, he’s saying, look, I’m going there. Don’t worry, because I’m going there for a very real purpose. I’m going there so that you can come and join me in my relationship with God. And they look at him like, what are you talking about?

How can we Join with God. In the Old Testament, there was no way that human beings could even get close to God without being destroyed. So the idea that God is an intimate lover that wants to be in your presence and you and in his presence was just simply not able to be conceived in the Old Testament. But Jesus is saying something. Look, I came into the world and if you watched my life and you did, you know me, everything I went through was something that is a way, it’s a way of living. And it’s not so much what I said, but you got to look at who I was, who I am and how I grew up, just like you.

And I was an outcast for most of my life. And then I began to feel that God wanted to speak through me. And then my message was something that most people couldn’t fathom and couldn’t understand because they didn’t have the capacity yet to imagine something as bizarre and as radical as God falling in love with me and wanting to be with me ultimately in heaven. And so he’s trying to say, look, this has been my message. My message has been to introduce to you the fullness of who God is. That’s what I’m here for.

And the best way I could do that is to do it as a human filled with divinity. Because that is exactly who you are going to be asked to believe. You are in that relationship with God, not as fully as Jesus. Jesus was, you know, 430 years after Jesus died, the church finally came together and said, we think we’ve solved this problem about divinity and humanity in Jesus. And I love their solution. You know, he was 100% both.

And that just blows away all logic and the work of the mind to figure all this out. How can somebody be two things at the same time? They can be, but the two things at the same time is an invitation to you and to me to believe that there’s a union possible between ourselves and God that is so life giving and so wonderful, it’s almost too much for us to even fathom that Jesus is returning to the Father to be with him. And he’s saying, I have introduced the Father to you. Father is going to call you from this life into a life with him. I think about death as being with all the people I’ve known in my life and that’s wonderful and that will happen.

But I haven’t really thought about what it’s like to be loved by God as an intimate friend. That’s more of what heaven is like than renewing old relationships. People in heaven have a work to do to share this incredible wisdom of what it feels like to have that kind of union with God, with those that are still working toward joining them. So we believe the dead have a very important role in our life and what a gift they are, but what a gift this God man, Jesus is to us. And I feel sad that I haven’t been talking like this most of my priesthood, but I’m so aware of the invitation on Jesus very life to say you have this capacity because of something that’s been done for you called redemption, and that redemption is anything that would keep you from the fullness of relationship with God has been dissolved and taken away. And.

And all you need to do is trust in it. So Jesus is the way and the truth is the love of God for you. And that is what we’re here for. That’s what the church is here for, to bring us into that incredible promise. No wonder Jesus starts this conversation with his disciples by saying, don’t ever let your hearts be troubled. How can you, when you’re loved as I have been loved as Jesus has been loved.

That’s what he’s saying. It’s a beautiful, hopeful, wonderful institution, the church, and often it gets sidetracked, being judgmental and making decisions for us that are our right to make. But at its heart, it is a living message that the heart is made for. And when you hear it and can get past all the logic and all the mystery of it, just believe it and wait for it in hope. Amen. Closing prayer Father, I pray that you will give us the faith that you shared with your disciples.

It is essential that we believe in your message, not our image of who we are and who God is, but continually to be changed and transformed by the fullness of the truth. And we ask this in Jesus name. Amen. This is a time of year when people make a decision to come on a pilgrimage to Tuscany with me. It’s been something I’ve been doing for years and it is by far the most exciting and enjoyable thing I do. So if you’re interested in it, it’s.

All the details are on our website, pastorreflectionsinstitute.com it’s in the first week of November and we already have a number signed up, and so there’s limited to how many we can have. But if you’re interested, please let us know soon so we can save you a place. Thank you. The music in our program was composed and produced by Ryan Harner for this show 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 2023 SAM.