Year C
Discover the deeper meaning and connections found in this week's readings, through these great commentaries written by our priests.
Explore this week's readings and hear what God is saying to us through His Word.
Find out more about how we can mark this special day in our liturgy.
See our music recommendations for the liturgy.
This Gospel is taken from the last meal Jesus had with his disciples before he was arrested.
Some weeks ago, when we had first Holy Communion –Jesus was preparing breakfast for his Friends. It was on the beach, and he cooked them fish and baked them bread. Jesus loves to have meals and share food and chat whilst at table. That’s why we have tables in this Church. We eat and we drink.
How many of you ever thought about Jesus cooking? Did you think that Jesus could cook?
You probably knew that he was a carpenter, but there are not many places in the Bible that tell you about Jesus as a cook. I don't know how often he cooked, but the Bible tells of one time that he did, and it was one of the most exciting events in the Bible.
Jesus invites everyone to his table for forgiveness and renewal, especially those who are far from him or have forgotten his love, and his hope for us is that we would do the same for others.
Jesus talks about’ love’ and ‘joy’ in the same breath.
To provide a way to understand and practice radical love, consider using the letters of the word “LOVE” to describe how to learn, cultivate, and practise love.
Listen–to love is also to listen. It is important to listen intently to the one or ones we are called to love, to hear what he or she has to say, and to be attentive to the other’s feelings and thoughts. Listening involves silencing one’s own internal voices by avoiding the rush to conjure up a response before the person has even finished speaking.
Open–to love is to be open to others and to new possibilities. The minute we close our minds and hearts to the possibility of change and growth we also smother our capacity to love. Because love is not static, because love seeks the good of others, radical love calls us to open our hearts, and our lives to the new, the strange, and even the uncomfortable.
Visible–to love is to be visible. Love does not hide its light. Love goes out into the world and risks being seen with those who are easy to love and those who push us beyond our comfort zones. Jesus never shrank from being seen and interacting with those on the margins or who were unclean and unacceptable in the eyes of the established religious traditions and institutions of his day.
Engage–to love is not to sit idly by and watch life’s parade go past. To love is to engage life fully, to enter into relationship with others in a spirit of hope and joy and love. Engaging in life and relationship can be messy and dirty, to be sure, but there is no other way to experience life in community and to share the ‘agape’ love of Jesus. We are called to open our faith communities to all, to open our homes, and to open our hearts. We must practice hospitality, mercy, empathy and loving kindness.
Lord, help us to love by listening, by being open, in ways visible and invisible, and by engaging ourselves in the restoration of your beautiful, broken world. Amen.
Constantly throughout the Easter Season we are reminded of the awesome nature of the Lord’s resurrection and its profound effect on his baptised people. Today’s Collect reinforces this. The mystery of the Lord’s Death and Resurrection is constantly at work within us. That’s what Christian initiation does. So we ask for its constant renewal in the Eucharistic Sacrifice. From that ‘constant’ source we can be made ‘fruitful in good works’ and enter eternal life.
The Prayer over the Offerings takes up this theme again, as does the Prayer after Communion.
An urgent need in our time is for a renewal of our sense of the fundamental significance of Baptism and its effects. These three short orations offer a profound catechesis about our Christian initiation.
Preface 2 of Easter might be a suitable one for this day.
Note: These hymns have been chosen from different sources.
Glorious things of thee are spoken (CFE195, L827, TCH218)
Jerusalem the golden (CFE317, L991, LHON387, TCH226)
Ye choirs of new Jerusalem (CFE818, L279, LHON746, TCH851)
A new commandment I give unto you (CFE4, L920, LHON133)
Love is his word, love is his way (CFE399, L803, LHON462)
Key
CFE - Celebration Hymnal for Everyone
L – Laudate
LHON – Liturgical Hymns Old and New (Mayhew, 1999)
TCH – The Catholic Hymnbook (Gracewing)
Do you have questions about the liturgy and how we are called to participate in it? Explore how the Church councils, saints, and popes have answered this key question and many more.
Every movement of the Mass is rich in meaning but we can become over-familiar with it. Rediscover the Mass and explore how it relates to the Exodus story, where many of its rituals come from, and how it makes Jesus present to us today.
