A message from Father Pete

Acts 4:8-12; 1 John 3:1-2; John 10:11-18 We are in the Easter Season and realizing how grateful we are to God, the Father, for sending us Jesus to let us know how much we are loved each moment of each day, and that He always has had a plan for us. God constantly lets humanity know about this plan. He has been spoon-feeding this to us; we’ve been slow in our acceptance of His nourishment. He has loved each person from the moment of creation and has promised life forever with Him. Moses shares a tremendous story of the fall of Adam and Eve. It describes the transition of the first man and woman from a state of truthful obedience to God to a state of guilty disobedience. We’ve been through this during our growing stages. We wanted what we wanted, whether it was good for us or not. We felt that we knew what was “good” for us. We thought what we “desired” was good and would lead us to happiness. So very often it didn’t because we were only thinking of ourselves. Yet God consistently showe

Acts 3:13-15, 17-19; 1 John 2:1-5; Luke 24:35-48 Holy Week has been a wonderful time to place myself in the scenes of Jesus’ life, love, and total sacrifice. I’m one of the crowd members with a good view of the actions and words bandied about. I’m there evaluating the people’s responses to Jesus: the religious authorities, the Jewish and Roman rulers. I want to see whether their responses are coerced or honestly given. I’m evaluating them on the basis of Jesus’ triple command of love given in response to a scholar of the law who tested Jesus in Matthew’s gospel: “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest? He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.’” [Matthew 22:36-40] In the Acts reading, Peter encounters a man crippled from

Acts 4:32-35; 1 John 5:1-6; John 20:19-31 We have celebrated the greatest feast in the Church year: The Resurrection of Jesus. It was preceded by Holy Week, where we remembered and relived the Passion and Death of Jesus. We all have our thoughts, meditations and reflections that remembered these solemn days. On Feb. 25, 2004, Mel Gibson starred in the New Testament-based movie The Passion of the Christ . Those of us who have seen this movie have witnessed more terror and fright at all that Jesus endured at the hands of evil people: the Romans, Jewish religious authorities, and people who did not believe in God’s presence in our lives and world. What did we learn that we didn’t already know? Probably not much … but this movie was very graphic. We were asked ... in a sense forced ... to watch the depth and extent of God’s suffering in the person of Christ, and the ridicule, anger and hate that was painfully inflicted on Him. Why do people get angry, we may ask? Why do they hate? Jesus’ l

Acts 10:34, 37-41; Colossians 3:1-4; John 20:1-9 If someone were to ask me for the basis of our faith in Jesus, what would I say? Peter responded succinctly: Jesus was special, sent by God on a mission. Do I view myself as special and sent on a mission by God? Peter maintained that Jesus was of high caliber and did good ... exhibited in His healing of those who were shackled by sickness and disease and traumatized by life. Do I see myself as a person who responds to those in need when convenient ... and even when inconvenient? Peter explained that Jesus died horrendously and rose from the dead three days later.  Those in authority tried to cover this up by claiming the body was stolen … but it wasn’t. Do I have an explanation for Jesus birth, life, and death other than just that He was another special person? Peter emphasized that Jesus wasn’t a mythical, shadowy person or a ghost: He was real and totally special. Do I see Jesus as totally better, greater or otherwise different from