Saturday May 30, 2009 of the 7th week of Easter

Saturday May 30, 2009 of the 7th week of Easter
Readings: ACTS 28: 16-20, 30-31 Psalm 11: 4-7John 16: 7-13
Response: “The just will gaze on Your face, O Lord”

After a hazardous journey, Paul arrived in Rome and was placed under what we would call, house arrest. He was allowed visitors both from the Christian and the Jewish community and his message was the same to both.
“Christ has died, Christ had risen, Christ will rise again!”
How these familiar words ring our in our hearts as we celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Christ had left this legacy with His disciples as an everlasting memorial. Not in the sense of a remembrance but rather as a conscious participation in His sacrifice, in an unbloody manner, as He directed.
Paul remained in chains until he was executed, by beheading, by Nero, as a possible threat to his rule.
Are we willing to forego this veiled life for the sake of the eternal life Christ promised?
Examine your conscience! If there is any bar to your eternal existence, confess your guilt and ask for the forgiveness promised by God through His envoys our Priests.

As our Psalm states, “the just will gaze on His face”. His Holy Temple resides in heaven where He will judge the sheep and the goats and according to their deeds, He will assign them to their everlasting reward or punishment!

In closing his Gospel, John reveals the disciple whom Jesus loved to be the author. Peter’s question was to evoke Jesus’ response to what would happen to John. When Jesus sort-of rebuked Peter by telling him it wasn’t truly his concern Peter assumed John would not die. Tradition tells us John lived a long life but he had to face the final judgment, just as Peter and all those who followed Jesus would.
To confirm the teachings of the Church would not be completely in the New Testament writings, John closes out his Gospel by noting, if everything said and done by Jesus were to be written the whole world couldn’t contain it .
Catholics depend on their Church as instituted by God and sustained in truth by the Holy Spirit to guard their deposit of Faith as essential to their salvation and all people of the world!