Sixth Sunday of Easter 2022 John 14,23-29 Rev. Neli ML Sisters and brothers, since Easter Day the risen Jesus has been in our midst proclaiming that death does not have the final word, renewing our lives, and reawakening our mission in this world. While his ascension into heaven approaches, today Jesus continues to strengthen us, reminding us that we are not alone in this world and giving us his peace. This Sunday, we continue reading John’s Gospel where we find Jesus’ farewell discourse amid his first community of disciples. It is them who are going to continue his mission and Jesus’s words prepare them to face the situations that are to come after his departure. In continuing Jesus’ mission, the disciples will face great challenges in the socio-political and religious context of the first century such as the opposition of the Jewish authorities and the persecution of the Roman Empire. The world they are going to face is certainly a difficult, troubled wo...
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Fifth Sunday of Easter 2022 John 13,31-35 Rev. Neli ML After the celebration of the Good Shepherd’s Sunday in Easter, we notice the farewell tone of the Gospel lessons. These lessons are appropriately placed in the context that precedes the ascension of Jesus and the coming of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost we will celebrate in the coming weeks. In John’s Gospel we find an extensive passage of four chapters (13-17) where Jesus, as a good teacher and shepherd, comforts his disciples and teaches them how to be a community in the world after his departure. Jesus’ teaching in these chapters is about love. Today’s passage is taken from Chapter 13 where, in the middle of the Last Supper, Jesus commands his disciples to love one another as he has loved them. This commandment is given amid a community of disciples whom Jesus loves deeply. In the preceding verses we read that Jesus gets up from the table and taking on the role of a slave, he washes his di...
Fourth Sunday of Easter The Good Shepherd Sunday. John chapter 10 Rev. Neli Miranda The fourth Sunday of Easter, or Good Shepherd Sunday, is celebrated each year in the liturgical cycle, and we read a passage of the Gospel taken from John Chapter 10, where Jesus calls himself the Good Shepherd. Thus, every year, we hear the sweet voice of Jesus saying, “I am the good Shepherd .” Jesus presents himself as the Good Shepherd in a confrontational context with Jewish authorities—the religious leaders—regarding the healing of a man born blind. Jesus has healed the man on a Sabbath day, and the religious leaders are outraged because Jesus is breaking the law. The blind man has spent all his life begging to survive, and now he has recovered his sight. However, the religious leaders do not care about the wellbeing of the people, and instead of supporting this man and his family for his reincorporation into society, they take him and his family to a religious trial an...
Third Sunday of Easter John 20:1- 19 Rev. Neli Miranda The Gospels tell us of several accounts in which the risen Jesus reveals himself to his community of disciples, women & men. These accounts tell us about the diversity of Jesus’ community in the first century and the diverse leaderships that arose after his resurrection and his commission: Mary Magdalene, Simon-Peter, Thomas, and the beloved disciple among others. Each of them received the good news of the risen Jesus in a different way, and for some, it took some time to understand it and respond accordingly. Today, we read John’s Gospel Chapter 21, which seems to be an addendum to the Gospel given that, in the previous chapter, the evangelist had closed his account with the manifestation of the risen Jesus to Mary Magdalene and the group of disciples who remained in hiding, and his mission for them to reconcile and restore the broken world. However, it seems that the Johannine communit...
Second Sunday of Easter 2022
Second Sunday of Easter 2022 John 20:19-31 Rev. Neli Miranda Easter is more than a liturgical season in our Christian calendar; it is a call to L ife, to recreation, to rebirth. It coincides with the beginning of spring and reveals the presence of God in nature through the blossoming of life on earth. In our Christian tradition, this season is preceded by the painful event of the cross leading us to a moment of death, emptiness, darkness, and of expectation for the first sprout of life, the first fruit of God’s creation, the risen Jesus. On the first Sunday of Easter, a group of women disciples, defying death, dared to go to Jesus’ tomb where they found the good news of the risen Jesus. These women, apostles of Jesus, immediately proclaimed the good news to the group of disciples who remained in hiding, but they did not believe the women. Now that evening has fallen over Jerusalem, they remain in hiding behind locked doors for fear of the Jews. The traum...