A Lectio Divina Approach to the Sunday Liturgy
BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD (Series 4, n. 22)
2nd Sunday of Easter, Year B – April 23, 2006
“Of One Heart and Mind”
BIBLE READINGS
Acts 4:32-35 // I Jn 5:1-6 // Jn 20:19-31
N.B. This new series of BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD: A LECTIO DIVINA APPROACH TO THE SUNDAY LITURGY presents a biblico-liturgical study of the First Reading of each Sunday Mass to serve as background for a better understanding of the Gospel proclaimed in the liturgy. For a biblico-liturgical study of the Gospel for each Sunday, please go to the PDDM Web Archives: WWW.PDDM.US.
I. BIBLICO-LITURGICAL REFLECTIONS
The following delightful story shared by Sr. Mary Luce Cornelio, an Indian-born PDDM religious sister working in San Jose, California, has both a missionary and Easter tone:
We had a papaya tree in our garden and it was full of papayas, big and small. Since it was too heavy, it was bending. When my father saw it, he wanted to save the tree from falling. So he gave it a support, a piece of wood, and tied it. Then he prayed, saying, “Lord, please save this tree from falling and every papaya on it. When the fruits will ripen, we will sell them and put the money in the mission collection box.” So the papaya tree never fell, neither did the fruits. We were able to sell all the papayas and we mortified ourselves from eating any of them. Finally, the mission collection box was full of money. When the priest came to pick up the box, he was surprised. Our collection contribution was the highest so he announced it during the Mass. My father’s joy was great and so was ours. We will never forget the great faith and love of our father for the missions. HAPPY EASTER TO ALL!
We have here a tightly knit family, animated by faith and love, capable of sharing and sacrifice. The members of this family and domestic church are capable of responding to the needy and have the missionary capability of going out of themselves to help others. In this charming family account is a glimpse of the Easter idyll narrated by the evangelist Luke in this Sunday’s first reading (Acts 4:32-35).
The passage from the Acts of the Apostles proclaimed today in the liturgical assembly depicts the early Christian community as “of one heart and mind”. The sharing and caring faith-community that was formed in the aftermath of the Easter events is the fruit of a “new creation”. It sprang forth from the redemptive action of the Risen Christ and the vivifying action of the Holy Spirit – his Easter gift to the Church. The first Christians who were “of one heart and mind” were concerned with the needs of others. The early Christian believers were marked by harmony, unity and love that were the fruits of their response to the renewing and recreating action of the Holy Spirit in their lives and to the great power by which the apostles bore witness to the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.
In Luke’s account of the sharing and caring Church is an inspiring and idyllic portrait of it in its initial stage. The biblical scholar, Eugene Maly explains: “Scholars generally agreed that Luke has composed here an idealized summary of Christian history. There are two other such summaries in this part of Acts (2:42-47 and 5:11-16). They are idyllic pictures of the springtime of the Church. In Luke’s mind, they are the emergent of the work of the Spirit, who came as the fruit of the resurrection. They are, therefore, Easter pictures painted by Luke. The summaries are firmly rooted in history. While Luke has generalized and idealized that history, holding up to all Christian communities of all ages a mirror of what they should be, some Christians did live this kind of Easter peace. In Christianity the ideal and the real unite in those wondrous surprises of grace.”
Indeed, Luke’s Easter idyll of the sharing and caring Christian community that is “of one heart and mind” challenges today’s Easter people to create a world in which no one has any need. The picture of a selfless faith-community in the “springtime of the Church” denounces the acquisitive and consumerist culture in which we live. It goads us to denounce the abuse of hoarded goods and the ill distribution of resources. The absolute necessity of Christian disciples to respond positively to the needy is resounded by the Church Fathers.
St. Basil the Great, an early Church Father, cried out his harsh exhortations to the hoarding, uncaring rich: “They proclaim themselves masters of the common goods they hoard, because they were the first to own them. If every one of them kept only what he required for his immediate needs, and if the surplus was given to the poor, wealth and poverty would be abolished … You are not a thief? You have taken for your own the goods of which you are supposed to be the caretaker … To the hungry belongs the bread you have. To the naked the cloak that is hidden in your trunk. To the footsore, the shoes rotting in your house. To the poor the money that you have buried in the earth. How can you oppress so many people that you could help?”
The vehement appeal of St. Basil the Great reminds us in this Easter season of our prophetic duty as redeemed people to pool our resources and sacrifice our possessions for the sake of the needy. The capacity to share and the grace to live in communal charity are a sign of the in breaking of the Spirit and the victory of the Risen Lord over the world of sin and selfishness. Indeed, if we live today in consonance with the idyll of the springtime of the Church, great favor will be accorded us all – God’s Easter people.
PERSONAL REFLECTION: Jn 20:19-31
By Rev. Fr. Mario Giachino SSP
SSP Community, Los Angeles, CA-U.S.A.
The apostle Thomas is certainly honest and frank. Today’s gospel shows us his character. It is not easy to bring him to believe that the Lord has truly risen. We may see ourselves in him, we who want to control things and who doubt things that we cannot see, hear, taste, smell or touch.
Our Lord understands this: and eight days after his resurrection he condescends to the demand of doubting Thomas, who was absent when our Lord appeared to the other apostles, and he tells him: “Take your finger and examine my hands. Put your hand into my side … and believe.”
As for us Christians of the twenty-first century, we may feel a little proud for believing in the resurrection more readily than did Thomas, and we may trust that our Lord will include us when he says: “Blest are those who have not seen and yet believed.”
The experience of the now believing Thomas should be ours. We should allow the power of the resurrection to be manifested in both our personal and community life. We should pray that the power of the risen Christ will heal the wounded, alleviate the oppressed, and free from spiritual death those who are held captive by the bonds of sin. And we should actively do our part to help all who suffer. As Christians we are called to transform the world.
What is surprisingly marvelous about faith is that, our faith is strong. Accompanied by prayer and action, we can make apparently impossible things possible. Then in gratitude, we can say: “My Lord and my God.”
II. POINTS FOR THE EXAMINATION OF THE HEART
A. What is the effect of Christ’s resurrection in my personal life and in the life of the community? How receptive and willing I am to respond to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the Risen Lord’s Easter gift to the Church?
B. What is the relevance of Luke’s idyllic picture of the “springtime of the Church”? How do I respond to this challenge? Am I willing to live to the full the Christian call to communal charity? Do I strive to be truly “of one heart and mind” with the faith community that cares for the needy?
C. What do I do as part of the Easter people to create a world in which no one has any need? Am I a prophetic presence of the Risen Lord in today’s materialistic and consumerist world? How do I share with today’s poor and needy the graces that flow from the glorified Jesus, the font of Divine Mercy?
III. PRAYING WITH THE WORD
Leader: Loving Father,
your Son Jesus Christ is alive and present in our midst.
His vivifying Spirit, the Easter gift,
renews us in our minds and hearts.
We adore you, thank you and praise you
for the beauty of the Easter mystery
that you have accomplished in Jesus Christ and in his Holy Spirit.
Help us to grow increasingly into a faith-community
that is “of one heart and mind”.
May we efficaciously build a more just and caring world
and gently and lovingly care for the poor and respond to each other’s needs.
As your Christian disciples of today,
help us to be a limpid sign of the “new creation”
and continually bear wonderful fruits of Easter glory.
Assist us to be channels of the peace and divine mercy
that flow out from Jesus, the Risen Lord,
who lives and reigns forever and ever.
Assembly: Amen.
IV. INTERIORIZATION OF THE WORD
The following is the bread of the living Word that will nourish us throughout the week. Please memorize it.
“The community of believers was of one heart and mind … There was no needy persons among them.” (Acts 4:32, 34)
V. TOWARDS LIFE TRANSFORMATION
A. ACTION PLAN: Thank the Lord for the idyll of the early Christian community in the “springtime of the Church”. Pray for the grace to respond to the ideal and challenge of the Easter community that is “of one heart and mind” and cares for the needy. Replicate in your daily life the spirit of unity and charity of the faith-community described in the Acts of the Apostles.
B. ACTION PLAN: To deepen our participation in the joy of the Risen Lord and to help us replicate the spirit and the stance of the early Christian community, make an effort to spend an hour in Eucharistic Adoration. Visit the PDDM WEB site (www.pddm.us) for the EUCHARISTIC ADORATION THROUGH THE LITURGICAL YEAR (Vol. 2, n. 22): A Weekly Pastoral Tool.
Prepared by Sr. Mary Margaret Tapang PDDM
PIAE DISCIPULAE DIVINI MAGISTRI
SISTER DISCIPLES OF THE DIVINE MASTER
60 Sunset Ave., Staten Island, NY 10314
Tel. (718) 494-8597 // (718) 761-2323
Website: WWW.PDDM.US