Fifth Sunday of Easter April 28, 2013 - St Mary Immaculate Parish

Reflections from Fr. David
As you can imagine from knowing a bit of my life
story, I was not raised on the Baltimore Catechism
but the Small Catechism of Martin Luther. As part
of our confirmation program, my classmates and I
had to memorize large portions of it and take tests in
which we wrote out from memory lengthy passages.
I loved it!
Anyway, in Luther’s Catechism he goes through
many of the basics of the Christian faith and
explains them. When it comes to explaining the Ten
Commandments, he wants people to know that the
Commandment from God is not merely a “thou
shalt not” but also a direction toward positive
action. For instance, in his section on the Fifth
Commandment, Luther writes:
You shall not murder. What does
this mean? We should fear and love
God so that we do not hurt or
harm our neighbor in his body, but
help and support him in every physical
need.
Here Luther displays a sense of the
heart of Christ; there is no great
virtue in refraining from
murder...no, we must also help the
lives of others and treat them
actively with love, compassion and
respect.
In my homily last weekend I invited the folks at
Mass to see the way out of the chaos of last week’s
terror and tragedies (in Boston, Texas and Plainfield)
through the eyes and prophetic, faithful invitation of
one of those killed in the Boston bombings. Martin
Richard, whose picture is on this page, was a fellow
Catholic who only last year made his First
Communion, and a pupil at his local parish school.
The picture comes from a school project and the
poster he made turns out to be a moving, loving and
holy invitation to us and all the world:
No more hurting people. Peace.
“...and a little child shall lead them.” (Isaiah 11:6).
Martin is a living reminder of the holy possibility of
a child of God hearing his voice and sharing it
fruitfully with all the world. Here, like the Crucified
One, is one of his faithful followers who himself
would suffer cruel and deadly violence, echoing the
Lord’s own words of compassion in the face of
murder, hatred and the power of terror and death.
But I want to invite us to combine Martin Richard’s
prophetic invitation to stop the cycle of violence
with Luther’s own pattern of seeing the fullness of
the meaning of the Lord’s invitation and
commandment.
Indeed, as followers of Jesus we live under the
command of God not to hurt people any more. But
the commandment goes beyond an absence of doing
harm. Not doing harm is not the
true fulfillment of the
commandment of the Lord; it must
be accompanied by the equally
binding command to do good to
people. This can be seen in the final
word on the sign...Peace. Peace is
not the absence of war or violence.
If we want peace, said Pope Paul
VI, we must work for justice.
That is, if we truly want to live the
invitation of “no more hurting
people” this does not mean that we are merely to
leave others alone. Rather, we are to see everyone as
neighbor, as our brother and sister in the
Lord...whether we like them or not. As followers of
Jesus (and he reminds us that we follow him most
truly when we obey his commands!) we are to reach
out to others in love, compassion, justice and mercy.
Here the invitation of Pope Francis is oh so relevant!
The call to enact the love of Jesus by reaching out to
the poor, to our neighbor and bringing the presence
of Christ. We are not merely to refrain from hurting
- we are called to do the work of the Lord to bind up
the wounds of this world...all in the Name and
aided by the love of the Wounded One.
Lord, give us grace to let Martin Richard’s
words...your words...live in us!
April 28, 2013 One Family in Faith Making Christ Known Page 3