6th Sunday of Easter

Our readings for the 6th Sunday of Easter are:

1. Acts 15: 1-2, 22-29
   
2. Psalms 67: 2-3, 5, 6, 8
   
3. Revelation 21: 10-14, 22-23
   
4. John 14: 23-29
   

• How do I love you?
  
• Spiritual direction is boils down to helping the other person see where God is moving in their lives, and how they can participate more fully in what God is already about.  Perhaps this model describes some aspect of a loving response that we should have to each other at all levels within the Church.
• Looking back over the past few years, do you see any patterns to what God is doing in your life, any broad themes.  These might be "teaching me humility", or "teaching me to trust more", or "teaching me to be more generous."
• What can you do to help God help you in that/those area(s)?
• Why is it so hard to see such trends in our lives?
• Do you think that such assessments are an important part of our discipleship?
  

• Speaking your language
  
• When I was a young, Wycliffe Bible Translators were held up as a place where missionary zeal, linguistic technology, and opportunity met.  Rather than the old model of forcing a people to learn a European language so that they could read the Bible, Wycliffe Bible Translators would study the people's native language, and translate the Bible into their language so that they could read God's Word in their native language.
• How well do you think you are really understood and appreciated as an individual within the Church?  That understanding might include your position as a parent, son or daughter to an ailing parent, divorced, unemployed, or any other dimension to your state in life.
• How would you like to hear the Gospel Message preached to your state in life?
• How do you think that might happen?
  

• Who needs the sun when you are here?
  
• Lesson 13 of the Baltimore Catechism is on the sacraments, and it starts off with a definition of sacraments: "An outward sign, instituted by Christ, to give grace."  Joseph Martos calls sacraments "doors to the sacred."  At bottom, every sacrament is brokered by means of some material element, the matter of the sacrament, be it the water of baptism, the oils of Confirmation, bread and wine, ...
• Why do you think that God insists on the sacraments having a material manifestation?
• Why do you think that God insists that sacraments are administered by human hands?  Why not just watch a video, say some words, read a passage?
• Who are the ministers of the marriage sacrament?  Careful here, the answer might surprise you.
• What do the sacraments teach you about the physical world around us?
• What do they teach you about us?
  

• Freedom lies in the memory
  
• I fantasize about photographic memory from time to time.  To be able to effortlessly recall everything I've ever learned, heard, read, it would be glorious I think to myself.  Maybe my memory is a gift, a way to teach me humility.  Jesus promised His disciples that the Holy Spirit would help them to remember.
• Do you think that it would have been better if those first disciples included a reporter, someone who knew how important Jesus' words were, and write them all down verbatim as they came from Jesus' lips?
• How much better would it be today if they had a videographer there to record everything?
• Would we still have disagreements among us today about doctrine, theology, practice?
• Why is that?
  

• Preparation for Reconciliation

1. Where is God making bold moves in my life?
2. Where is God calling me to be more understanding of others?
3. How can I be more sacramental in the lives of those around me?
4. When was the last time that I took some time to remember what/how God has been good to me?

Shalom and a blessed Easter to you!