Homily: Fourth Thursday of Easter

Fourth Thursday of Easter (Acts 13:13-25) “Holy but Flawed”

The section of the Acts of the Apostles that we read at Mass today covers St. Paul’s first missionary journey. This journey was the shortest of Paul’s three missionary journeys. He made a circle that went through present day Turkey. He started in Antioch in Syria and ended there.

He had companions. One of them was Barnabas. Another was John Mark. John Mark was younger. We believe that this man wrote the Gospel of Mark.

Whenever we travel with others there can be tensions. This was the case between these three men. Friendships are tested when people are under the stress of travel. I have been on a few trips with groups of people, and I have seen the end of friendships during an excursion.

Paul, Barnabas and John Mark had a disagreement when they were on mission. John Mark had mixed feelings about letting gentiles join the church. Paul was in favor of this. At one point in the journey things got so bad that John Mark left and went home. He was obviously young and impetuous.

Barnabas asked Paul to be patient with John Mark. Paul, even though he was a saint, had a temper. He had certain things he believed, and he did not like being questioned. He broke with several of his missionary companions during his ministry. It took years for Paul to forgive John Mark for deserting him. In the end he did. Paul and Barnabas’ wounded relationship never seemed to recover.

We should see in these disagreements that Paul and his co-workers were human, like we are. We also can ascertain that they were all passionate about their ministry. All of them cared about the church and cared about presenting the Gospel accurately.

Finally, we can observe that God uses flawed people to achieve noble purposes. The church flourished despite all the tensions because God wanted it to succeed. The hand of God was on all involved.

Reflection Questions:

1.    Do the weaknesses of the church’s ministers impact my faith? Why?

2.   Have I seen sinful people achieve noble ends? How can this happen?

 Dear Parishioners,

           Some of you may be wondering if we are getting close to the end of our building project. The answer is that we are. This week we received the binders containing the owner’s manuals and instructions on how all the appliances and other mechanicals work in the building. We also received the “as builds” which are the blueprints that were used when we were building the Gathering Center. These plans show the exact location of all plumbing, wiring, etc.

          The last thing that needs to be down for the building is the sealing and striping of the black top. This will happen after the last day of school. Then we can make our final payment to Hodge Construction.

          We still have some things to complete inside the building with other contractors. We will need to install a sound system for example. As donations come in, we will complete this work.

          St. Damian, patron of our campaign, pray for us.

          Fr. Mark