May 3, 2026
5th Sunday
Easter
FOCUS: God has made us a chosen race and a royal priesthood. In him we find our deepest identity.
The second reading from the First Letter of Peter provides a beautiful and yet challenging description of who we are as Christians. We are, by virtue of baptism, a chosen race, a royal priesthood, and a people set part to give praise to God. Taken together, these statements remind us what a grace and privilege it is to be chosen, but they also reassure us of how God sees us and how we ought to see ourselves and others. Everything we do must reflect this holy and royal status.
What's in Your Heart
We all want answers, and it would be great if things were spelled out for us. But that isn't very often how it goes.
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What questions about my faith and the way things are trouble me the most?
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What definition of who Jesus is makes the most sense to me? When do I feel most confused?
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Do I feel chosen and precious in the sight of God, and as Saint Paul describes, am I allowing myself to be built into a spiritual house?
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In what ways do I do the works that Jesus did? What more should I do?
Homily Stories
The summer after college graduation, I stood in Milwaukee’s Amtrak station, waiting for a train to New York City. I was traveling with a friend to start my first semester of study at a Catholic seminary. My parents drove in from our small rural town to see me off. As we said our final goodbyes, my mom and dad were overcome with emotion. They sobbed. In fact, I didn’t ever remember seeing my father cry until then. As I told my friend: “Gee, you’d think that I was their only child rather than the eldest of seven!”
This memory is a good illustration of my favorite Saint Augustine quote: “God loves each of us as though there were only one of us.” It also points me back to the theme of love expressed so eloquently by John the Evangelist.
The word love appears 57 times in the Gospel of John, more than the other three gospels combined. And the First Letter of John, consisting of only 105 verses, runs a close second, with a whopping 46 mentions.
John’s gospel and first letter start with Jesus as being one with the Father—from the beginning of time—as the Word: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” says John 1:1. In the letter, Jesus is the “Word of Life” who was “with the Father” (1 John 1:1-2).
Yes, it’s true that “God so loved the world that he gave his only son” (John 3:16). But through that son, John tells us in 1 John 4:16, the true nature of God is revealed: “God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him.”
