Father Cioppi's Blog

The Gospel passage is proclaimed within the context that it was not we who chose God, but rather God who, in his grace, approached us with a call and an offer made out of his love. This Gospel reveals the purpose of our call:

We are chosen for joy! We are chosen for love! We are chosen to be his friends!

The Christian is a person whose joy may be complete. No matter what charism a Christian has been given, if it isn’t accompanied by joy the charism will not ignite the human heart. Joy is the first charism of the Christian and radiates more brightly in darkened times.

The Christian is a person who defines love by his life. “No one can show greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.’ For the Christian, love extends even to enemies and so we must work to love even those who despise us.

Finally, Jesus chose us to be his friends and the friends of God. No longer do we need to approach God from far off. We are not slaves. Jesus gave us an intimacy with God, so that he no is longer distant or a stranger, but very close, in fact as close to us as our heart.

If we truly believe in the power of our baptism we will live out the call of Christ to complete our joy, extend our love and define our friendship, ‘because love is of God; (and) everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God…not that we have loved God, but that he loved us…’

My dear friends, if we find ourselves struggling with this Gospel ask yourself, have I loved God enough? If not, then love Him more!

From the Gospel today we can learn three things: That the person who stood before the Apostles in the Upper Room after the crucifixion is real. He reveals his wounds to them and invites them to ‘touch and see.’ This is the person who wants now to have a faithful relationship with us.

The second lesson we can learn is that the Cross is a necessary part of Divine Providence.  It is not a last minute cure when all else failed, for the Cross is the one place on earth, where in a moment of time, we see the eternal love of God.

The third lesson we can learn are the secret of power. All authority, place and action comes from God and without Him there is tyranny over the human spirit. There may be times when people think we are wasting our time here in the silence of this sacred space. They may think that our Sunday gathering as a parish is ‘stupid.’ But the wisdom of God tells us that there is a time to wait on God and a time to work for God. And this is a time to wait on God.

These times that we wait on the Lord are important not just for our parish and ourselves but also for the world and for humanity. Listening is the beginning of good preaching.

Our faith is meant to be shared in the image of God. Take what you have heard and by your actions announce the Good News to a barren world. Be salt for the earth!

The Doubting Thomas of the Gospel poses a challenge for us who seek to be committed to parish life and to life with God.

Certainly we saw the numbers of people who came to Mass last Sunday and said in the back of our minds, if only they would come every week!

How is it possible for a person who has encountered Christ to loose their faith? Faith is a fragile gift. Certainly we can practice our faith first as a parish on Sunday and secondly as a family at home. People can become complacent in their practice and allow themselves to become lost and confused in their relationship with God. They endanger their true worship of God and risk loosing the faith freely given them.

But for a person who works at his/her relationship with God and becomes ignited by the fire of his grace, it is possible never to forget the promises made to them by God here at this Altar for eternal life. Divine Mercy helps us to remember the fragility of our faith and with what mercy God desires us to reconcile ourselves with him.

Yes, it is possible to loose our faith by ignoring it or by denying it through complacency and shame. The risen life is a struggling life-it is also, because of that struggle, a life filled with joy at being with God. It is a life that is more real, more human, and more virtuous.

In order to live the resurrection, we have to practice Christian virtues and worship here as a People called by God.  All of us who have been fully initiated into the Catholic faith have, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, gifts of virtue like patience, hope, fortitude, fear of the Lord, charity, temperance and courage. The resurrection means taking a proactive stance in the life of virtue and consciously practicing them in the parish, knowing that sometimes we will fail.

Today’s scripture presents Thomas who cannot believe without more evidence, without more signs. Christ even reveals his wounds and yet he does not believe.  Jesus tells him: “Do not persist in your unbelief but believe.”

As we embrace the  risen life let us more diligently practice those virtues that have become a contradiction to the world in which we live. We who are faithful to our commitment to the Church in our family and in this parish should pray for those who have become complacent. Bring them back, O Lord,  to the place you wish them to be. Infuse in their hearts a fire that will burn through Divine Mercy.

The Church announces paschal joy to the whole of humanity. In that joy resounds victory over our fear and mediocrity. “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief!” Accepting the life of faith will invigorate the old world and make it new!

This is the day to take great consolation in the words, “Although you have not seen him you love him; even though you do not see him now, you believe in him, you rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, as you attain the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”

In the long history since the creation of the world, we have come to understand that “God looked at everything he had made, and found it very good.” (Genesis 1:31)

God created us and established in our human nature a relationship that is eternal and loving. God reached deep into the ocean of his love and formed humanity in his image and likeness. We are good from the core of our being and free to return his love, which is mirrored in our living a virtuous life.

When Adam and Eve turned away from God they chose to be alienated from him and estranged from one another. They found in their shame no way home and wandered aimlessly without direction; lost and confused in their own self-absorption. This rejection of God was repeated many times throughout history. Every time God reached out in love, we ignored or rejected him.… the more I called to them, the further they went from me (Hosea 11:2).

But then something happened, an event ritualized in these past few days that abruptly changed reality for the world. God gave up his Son to death, the last and most desperate result of Adam’s sin, so the new Adam might lead us back to the Father.

We are present now in the most ancient tradition of the Catholic Church to bring these men and women to the point of their death in Christ. They do not run away, they are running toward the font of living water. Through this Baptism, Christ will lead them back to the Father and the new Adam will give them full communion in His Church.

With the rising of the Sun we will hear a voice calling us to return ‘on the first day of the week.’  It will ignite our Church with new life! The message will reverberate around the world, lighting up its darkened corners and nourishing it’s most wanting dwellings. He will be Risen!  Alleluia!

My dear friends, now we too can proclaim what has been handed down to us through the Apostles! We too can give testimony to the truth and be salt for the earth! Christ is alive and “makes all things new.”

Pope Benedict, in his call for a Year of Faith (Porta Fidei, 2011) wrote: “We cannot accept that salt should become tasteless or the light be kept hidden (cf. Mt 5:13-16). The people of today can still experience the need to go to the well, like the Samaritan woman, in order to hear Jesus, who invites us to believe in him and to draw upon the source of living water welling up within him (cf. Jn 4:14). We must rediscover a taste for feeding ourselves on the word of God, faithfully handed down by the Church, and on the bread of life, offered as sustenance for his disciples (cf. Jn 6:51). Indeed, the teaching of Jesus still resounds in our day with the same power: “Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life” (Jn 6:27). The question posed by his listeners is the same that we ask today: “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” (Jn 6:28). We know Jesus’ reply: “This is the work of God that you believe in him whom he has sent” (Jn 6:29). Belief in Jesus Christ, then, is the way to arrive definitively at salvation.”

This call will convert souls, crushing their complacency with a great fire re-ignited this holy night! The fire your hold in your heart, Jesus asks you to release it into the world as a leaven! Release your faith to be salt for the earth!

The Resurrection of Jesus transforms the contentment of our religious practice with a missionary zeal that will transform the earth to a temple for the virtuous life rather than a prison for the vices.

Christ can help us convert souls, illuminating the darkness of this world and filling it with grace.  The barriers we built up to stop Christ, all destroyed, all shattered in the wind of the Holy Spirit.

The man who walked through Galilee walks with us still.  Evil in all its forms does not have the last word. The final triumph is Christ’s! If we are prepared to suffer and die with Him, as St. Paul reminds us his life becomes our life. We are certain of this truth which is eternal and unchanging!

This now is a new age of Christian hope and faithful maturity, where the virtues will root us in the glory of God. We will save souls in this parish, a small part of the Kingdom of God. We will follow our Apostle to teach and sanctify God’s holy People.

Let us begin by welcoming those who have been lost, confused or like us, complacent, in our faith practice. In our joy this holy night, we welcome them home and invite them to share in the new life Christ gives to us all.

God’s love begins at home, in our families and in our hearts. It is a spark of resurrection joy that helps us forgive; helps us recognize in each other the Christ we seek. In the school of the family, we can enrich a culture that supports virtue; builds solid communities of hope and ensures that neighborhoods and homes practice human respect, consequences for wrongdoing and dignity for all.

Here and now, we can take the light given and proclaimed through us and rededicate our parish to ignite other hearts to an active and vital participation in the life of God.

All Christians are called this day to interior meditation on the mysteries we hold sacred; called to live the virtuous life with a quieter and more serene countenance. But to preach as if Christ is plunging his hands into our hearts and pulling forth love, forgiveness and joy for anyone who seeks him! Christ is alive and “makes all things new!”

The tears of a Father for His only Son splash over us today as the cup of salvation is poured out. In the ringing silence of this moment we find ourselves asking, “Can I drink of this cup?” Can I become this man’s disciple?

Today the cross fascinates the curious. What does the crucifixion mean? Jesus is not on show here. We do not watch him die. He beckons us to die with him. Julian of Norwich says He invites us onto the Cross to be scourged and nailed by the angry and Godless who have been blinded and deafened by the world.

God chose the cross because it fulfills his expectation for the Son of Man. Death on the Cross means to suffer and to die as someone rejected and expelled, as was He by the people He came to save: the People He loves.

To become his disciple is to make a commitment to this person now hanging from a tree, this man who is scourged and pierced; this person who today, all over the world suffers because God loves Him.

Be warned, this commitment places the disciple under the law of Christ which is complete self-sacrificing love. Make no mistake everything depends on your decision to “take up your cross and follow me.”

Whoever enters discipleship enters Jesus’ death and puts his own life into death; this has been so from the beginning. There will be risks; there will be a leaving of comfort zones and individual conveniences. The cross, after all is not a horrible end to a pious life but rather the beginning of community with Jesus. Being alone in this community will be difficult because we never do anything outside communion. Every call of Christ leads to death.

The wounds that will be struck here, and the scars every Christian receives from the struggle, are living signs of the community of the cross with Jesus. Nor does the disciple suffer alone. They gather, as the Church gathers, to receive the blows and the insults of a world of stone throwers, a world of the lost and unguided.

The communal history of the Church is filled with martyrdom. Our discipleship, should we choose to accept it, will be today tomorrow and always for Christ, who gave his body into the hands of those who live in darkness without the light.

If disciples choose to accept their baptism, it means they no longer accept the self. It means seeing only Jesus, who goes ahead of all of us increasing the Truth by decreasing the darkness of sin.

How does a disciple know the cross, come to recognize it in the community of Jesus? They encounter it in the surrender of their will to God’s, in their struggle to perfect the virtues, in their shared ‘agonia’ on Calvary, and in their individual and communal martyrdom.

If the disciple is willing to become a member of this ‘community of burnt men,’ then they will risk the joy of scourging and hanging on the cross. Yes my friends, Christians are in deed ‘signs of contradiction’ in the world, they are ‘salt for the earth,’ they enhance the flavor of God’s holy Word in a complacent world.

Their only sorrow comes from being ashamed of Jesus and taking offense at his rejection. Read the history of the Christian life and you will encounter men, women and even children who amid horrific torment experience the most extreme joy!

“Let this cup pass from me? No, let the disciple drink of this cup completely for this is the reason Jesus came into this world: to glorify God.

But, “can you drink the cup?”

It is a life commitment not so unfamiliar to the world. Once committed, we will hear a voice; gently but firmly cry out, “BE NOT AFRAID, CAST YOUR NETS OUT INTO THE DEEP FOR A CATCH.” Today we meet Jesus at the point of death. Jesus will not allow us to stagnate here. He will not allow the salt of the earth to loose its flavor.

Here in King of Prussia, we are becoming a community that embraces the true dignity of the person and will always seek the integral conversion of everyone to Christ through correct catechesis, prayer and the seven sacraments.

We stretch out our arms, now as always, to embrace humanity and to lift it up to hear the Word of God proclaimed and lived! We are being sent from the Cross to free hearts to encounter, as we will, the true joy of being a member of God’s holy family.

This joy we share is a vivid reminder that obedience to the Cross makes our Catholic Church bold in its proclamation of forgiveness, audacious in our compassion for the sick and courageous in our search for the alienated, the despised and the poor. Christ is alive and we need not be afraid to say it and live like we really believe it!

As a parish, let us choose discipleship. Let us together embrace the Cross and as individuals obedient to His will, let us follow where he leads, and at the same time, recognize that we too are being followed by a God who seeks us out, who desires to find us and hold us dear.

Brothers and Sisters in the Lord, we are never alone. We do not walk Calvary as strangers. We walk the Hill with Jesus; hand in hand; he leads us there, until in the end it is not you, or me nor any human being, nor any creature under heaven, but rather only Christ, who cries out to us today from the Cross, “Come, follow me!”

With the sign of the Cross, our parish enters the mystery of God!

We gather in this Upper Room to commemorate the commingling of the ritual of the Mass with the sacrifice of Calvary: the offering of Christ’s Body to the Father. And in this sacred mystery, we commemorate the vehicle through which this sacrifice is offered, the priesthood of the Apostles.

Christ willed that his sacrifice be continually present as a sign of authentic Christian unity. The Eucharist is one and the same time Christ’s sacrifice and the Church’s sacrifice, because in it Christ unites the Church with his redemptive work and invites the Church to share in his suffering.

It is important then that we, who share the one bread and the one-cup, assume a personal attitude of offering. We cannot come to just listen and watch, we need to engage the mystery, to make Christ’s suffering our own, sacrificing our pain, our difficulties, our trials- our whole humanity with him and in him so as to commingle our gift with the gift Christ makes of Himself.

By entering the ritual sacrifice of this night, we share in the victory won by Him over evil in the world. When the words of consecration are uttered and the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ become present in this ritual act, love triumphs over hatred, holiness succeeds over sin, selfless joy conquers selfish pleasure.

The Eucharistic celebration is stronger than all the evil in the universe because Christ offers himself freely as gift to His Father. This night too, Jesus becomes the servant washer, as an example to his apostles of servant leadership and how they will sacrifice their bodies for the love of God. In this way the Eucharist becomes for us an act of freedom and communion with the Father and with the Church.

When we join this moment of grace, the breaking of bread and the washing of the Twelve become how we define our freedom and how we live our communion.  For if we do not allow the Eucharist to transform our lives, we surrender to a state of bondage and alienation risking the loss of our souls and the souls of others.

The love of Christ in this Sacrament enlarges our capacity to love and moves us to more sincere and credible acts of charity-because it is Christ living within us! In the Eucharist made present here on our Altar through the hands of the priest, Christ comes to finish the work His Father gave him. He establishes the sacrificial priesthood in the Twelve that our souls might be filled with the same Charity, which led him to die for us on the Cross.

Jesus comes to live in our hearts and to lead us to the one end toward which we struggle every day: the love of God and the love of our neighbors in God. If we will but respond to His love, if we will but let this divine sacrament purify our hearts of all attachments to worldly things, Christ will make us stronger and more determined to love him. He will teach us through the ministry of the Apostle, to understand not only his love for us, but also his love of our neighbor. He will teach us to see into the depths of our brother’s heart, through the humility and compassion of each priest who opens his heart to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

As Christ came to overcome evil with good, so we too, nourished by this sacrament, will learn in our reception, that the charity of Christ is strong enough to reach out and embrace even our enemies, strong enough to conquer them, turning them from enemies into friends.

Yes, we celebrate the ritual Sacrifice of Calvary and the Washing of the Twelve because he has “given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should do also.”

Today marks the beginning of a holy week of remembrance. Through Scripture, Song and Sacred Ritual, we commemorate Christ’s Passion, Death and Resurrection. Our Parish Lenten journey leads us now to the gates of Jerusalem where ‘Jesus emptied Himself and accepted death on a cross.’ We come to this time and place, open to the wonders of Christ’s death; a power that brings new life to those who have lost hope, a home to the confused, and healing to those who suffer.

It is on Calvary we find our noblest aspiration as human persons. Tertullian wrote: “The flesh is the hinge of salvation.” We believe in a God Who made Himself human in order to redeem us by the very flesh He gave us.

Jesus, the Son of God, freely suffered death for us in complete and free submission to the will of God. He asks nothing less from us. “By His death He has conquered death, and so opened the possibility of salvation for all of us (CCC, 1019).”

If we can identify with the Centurion of the Gospel, and stand with him beneath the Cross and say with him: “This indeed was the Son of God,” then we will enter more deeply these sacred moments and ponder the great mystery of God’s love for us.