May 25, 2025
6th Sunday
Easter
FOCUS: Home to the Holy Spirit, our hearts become the eternal dwelling place of Christ.
Christians on pilgrimage to the Holy Land are often greeted with the words, “Welcome home.” Indeed, the Church began in Jerusalem; Jesus died right outside of its walls; and it is also home to the first council recounted in today’s first reading. Truly, our home is not in a particular place but in Christ, through the gift of the Holy Spirit. Jesus gives light to the new Jerusalem, which is the eternal city, the kingdom of God.
What's in Your Heart
In a way, this weekend’s readings speak of the ideal and the real. Conflict hits the community in Acts, and responsible persons step forward to try to resolve it. Revelation describes a place of faith, the new Jerusalem. And Jesus says he must go and warns of trouble, but also promises help and ultimate peace.
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How do you deal with conflict? How can you engage conflicts constructively and help to bring about the best outcomes?
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Where do you encounter the “new Jerusalem”—where does the deep satisfaction and joy of being a Christian open up the most for you?
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Mindful of the presence of the Holy Spirit, how do you continue to be “taught”? Where do you find good “reminders” about what is important in your life and work?
Homily Stories
At our house Sunday lunch was pasta. It always had been and I guess that I always expected that it would be. When I left home and went off to college, after the Sunday community Mass, the entire seminary population would gather in the dining hall for a big banquet meal. But it never was pasta, so I found that I was never satisfied. It might have been ham or roast beef or fried chicken. It didn’t matter. I was used to and needed my pasta on Sunday.
Decades have passed. But give me a choice, and on Sundays I would most like to be with my family sharing heaping, steaming bowls of pasta like we used to. It doesn’t happen as often now. But when we do gather it remains a very special time for me. It is funny how something like a pasta meal can become so much a part of my identity, of who I am.
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So, too, our identity as Christians can be traced to our Baptism and our Confirmation and our reception of the Eucharist in what we called the sacraments of Initiation that give to us the gift of the Holy Spirit, God’s loving presence with us.
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Just as I learned to take my familial identity with me and have it be part of who I am even on those pasta-less Sundays, the days I am not with my family, so, too, my identity as a Christian rests in the realization of the Spirit, by virtue of all the sacraments, walks with me wherever my life’s journey takes me.
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First Reading
Second Reading
Gospel
Quotes
Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, not even if your whole world seems upset. If you find that you have wandered away from the shelter of God, lead your heart back to Him quietly and simply.
—Saint Francis de Sales