May 2025 Newsletter – Perfect Love

“For God so loved the world…”

In this Easter Season we hear much about God the Father’s character, i.e., what He is all about.

Each of us may see God the Father in different ways. Perhaps some really connect with what Jesus told us, He is our dad, a loving and caring Father. For others, we may see Him as a judge. Some may see in Him the balance of justice and mercy. St. John, the beloved disciple, would later write much about the character and nature of love as found in God: So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as He is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. (1 John 4:16-18) The thought of God as love moves John to talk about God’s love “perfected among us.” The Greek word translated “perfected” (teleios) means “reaching a goal”, or “finishing” and “completing” something. It is the word Jesus cried from the cross, “It is finished!” (John 19:30). Jesus was telling the world that in His death God’s redeeming work was finished, having reached the Father’s goal.

As much as John speaks of love he speaks of us. He uses words like we, us, and those who abide. God’s perfect love completed the work of salvation in Jesus on the cross, but we who abide here still have much to do. As we accord more and more to the way of Jesus we reach a perfection of love that is like the Father’s. We come into a unity of love as exists between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God’s love takes active action in us reaching love’s goal and causing His Kingdom to grow. We have a goal we are headed toward. So, let us live His love in greater and greater ways, eventually reaching that point where we can truly empty ourselves for love of our brothers and sisters, and can say along with Jesus, we have completed our work.

Welcome to our May 2025 Newsletter. A bit late, but here nonetheless. We continue to celebrate the fifty day Easter Season. We celebrate our moms and our heavenly mother, Mary. We look forward to great summer events – read up on them. All that and more in our May 2025 Newsletter.

Bible Study for the 5th Week of Easter 2025

This week’s memory verse: You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. — Matthew 5:48

  • 5/18 – Romans 12:2
  • 5/19 – Psalm 138:8
  • 5/20 – Hebrews 10:14
  • 5/21 – Genesis 1:27
  • 5/22 – 1 John 4:18
  • 5/23 – Galatians 5:22-23
  • 5/24 – 1 John 4:17

Pray the Week: Father, Your Son Jesus revealed Who You are. Grant that we may draw from the well of Your perfect love and effectuate that love in our every step. Amen.

Reflection for the 5th Sunday of Easter 2025

“This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Christ is risen! Alleluia!
He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

As we have been journeying through this fifty-day celebration of Easter, we may have noticed one theme that re-emerges week after week. That theme is Jesus’ revelation of Who His Father is.

That revelation was made clear from the cross, where obedience to the Father’s will caused His very Son, Jesus, to give Himself up to death to save us.

From the empty tomb we learned that the resurrected Lord appearing in glorified body had opened the gates of heaven to us. We will be like Him in that same glory for all of eternity.

Last Sunday we heard Jesus tell us that the Father, upon His throne, holds us in His hands. The Father declares that we are His and no one can take us away from Him.

Today, Jesus speaks of the Father’s powerful love. Love is what motivates God, love is His character. God is the perfection of love.

The perfection of love calls us to love, calls us to move our love from imperfect to perfect.

God’s perfect love is now in the Church by Jesus’ very command: “I give you a new commandment: love one another.”

Jesus speaks of glory: “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him.”  What we might understand of glory is far removed from God’s self-understanding of what glory entails. Glory is simply perfect love.

Glory is not crowns or treasures or power in the earthly banal sense, but rather a treasury of love that we can draw from. As we draw from it, we have cause to share, grow, and perfect love (by God’s grace) in ourselves and in our interactions with others.

St. John in Revelation shares his vision of the new heaven and the new earth. That reality is very much dependent on our cooperation with God and our work in building His Kingdom.

We will not get it done through earthly power nor riches or special wisdom. That work is completely dependent on how well we love.

Bible Study for the 4th Week of Easter 2025

This week’s memory verse: His left hand is under my head, and his right hand embraces me! — Song of Songs 2:6

  • 5/11 – John 3:16
  • 5/12 – John 3:17
  • 5/13 – Hebrews 11:1
  • 5/14 – Genesis 1:27
  • 5/15 – Micah 6:8
  • 5/16 – 2 Corinthians 4:17
  • 5/17 – Psalm 147:3

Pray the Week: Father, Through Jesus, Your Son, You showed us the depth of Your love. You hold us as the apple of Your eye, in the palm of Your hand. Help me to love as You love. Amen.

Reflection for Good Shepherd Sunday 2025

“My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all, and no one can take them out of the Father’s hand.”

Christ is risen! Alleluia!
He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

The eternal creating God, the just God holds us like this.

Jesus calls out a very key point we sometimes fail to grasp. We may miss it because of images like that of Jesus cradling the lamb. In calling Himself the Good Shepherd, it is natural to focus only on the image of Jesus as Shepherd. Yet, what Jesus calls us to today is focus on His Father in heaven holding us. 

The Father, upon His throne, holds us in His hands. The Father declares that we are His and no one can take us away from Him. 

We could liken this image to that of a father or mother holding their infant in their arms as they rock away in a chair. We, through our experiences, have all seen that image of perfect love and care, of defense and protection. Love when poured out before our eyes, is naturally understood.

Today we are called to see our Heavenly Father doing that for us. His magnificent, overwhelming, and unconditional love is poured out on us as He holds us. 

Some smarty-pants people when talking about our faith, and they are usually ‘insiders,’ make ridiculous statements like love is more important than doctrine. That is because their definition of doctrine is corrupted. In this 1700th year of the Nicaean Creed which we will profess in a few moments we declare a doctrine the tells us who God is.

And this is Who He is: A Father sending His beloved Son into the world and to the Cross for us; A Father with love so great that He spent it all to bring us into His arms.

If we live what we believe we live love. If we are one with the Father and Son in the Spirit, we bear the image of our loving God.

Yesterday, we experienced the ordination of a new shepherd in the model of Jesus. Fr. Sean. Toward the end of the Holy Mass, after pledging his obedience, the Prime Bishop leaned over and gently kissed him on top of his head. The shepherd’s love in the model of the Father exemplified. I cried because God opened my eyes to see that He loves us like that.

Bible Study for the 3rd Week of Easter 2025

This week’s memory verse: And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him. — Luke 5:11

  • 5/4 – John 8:12
  • 5/5 – John 12:26
  • 5/6 – Mark 8:34
  • 5/7 – Acts 20:24
  • 5/8 – 1 John 2:27
  • 5/9 – 2 Timothy 2:22
  • 5/10 – John 3:16

Pray the Week: Lord Jesus, You have called me to follow You. You have spoken to my heart and the Holy Spirit prompts me to action. Grant that I may be faithful to Your call, always pursuing those things You call me work on.  Amen.

Reflection for the 3rd Sunday of Easter 2025

“Amen, amen, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.”

Christ is risen! Alleluia!
He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

There is an amazing amount of material and symbolism contained in today’s gospel message.

Seven of the remaining eleven Apostles have gone back to their former way of life, and their former failures. As when Jesus first called Simon, James, and John their nets were empty.

Jesus tells them to try again – meaning not just the fishing, but the ministry they were called to.

Jesus is not big on going back or backsliding. He wants us to, through the power of His resurrection, move forward, to persevere in the ministry we have been given.

After the catch and their recognition of Jesus, Peter finds himself undressed and quickly covers himself and then swims toward the Lord. Peter takes the first step in recovering himself with grace, putting on not just clothes, but the Lord.

Jesus reasserts His resurrected humanity at the campfire by the lake where He eats with them. During that meal, they are reminded of that supper they shared with the Lord before His death, and they are recalled to the ministry of that supper.

Jesus calls Simon Peter aside to reconcile his betrayals. Jesus questions him about his love. In the original Greek, Simon Peter says he loves Jesus as a ‘brother.’ Jesus is asking him if he loves Him with his whole self – just as Jesus loves us.

Even though Simon’s answer is weak, Jesus still calls him to feed and tend His followers, recalling him to ministry.

Finally, Jesus tells Peter that he will have to forego his sense of self-determination and self-control. Jesus tells him that he will learn to let go, even to the point of sacrificing his life for the life Jesus offers.

Like the Apostles that day let us hear Jesus’ call and offer Him all our love. Allow Him to take control of our lives.

Bible Study for the 2nd Week of Easter 2025

This week’s memory verse: Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times in every way. The Lord be with you all. — 2 Thessalonians 3:16

  • 4/27 – John 16:33
  • 4/28 – Isaiah 26:3
  • 4/29 – Matthew 5:9
  • 4/30 – John 14:27
  • 5/1 – Philippians 4:6
  • 5/2 – Psalm 4:8
  • 5/3 – Colossians 3:15

Pray the Week: Lord Jesus, Your great signs and wonders fill my life. I often stand unaware of their presence. Grant that by Your peace I may see all that You do for me and live in dedication to You.  Amen.

Reflection for Low Sunday 2025

Many signs and wonders were done among the people at the hands of the apostles.

Christ is risen! Alleluia!
He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

We all may have heard of the term ‘shock and awe.’ That term first emerged as a military strategy based on the use of overwhelming power and spectacular displays of force to paralyze the enemy’s perception of the battlefield and destroy their will to fight. While as a concept, the term and strategy had been around for some time, it came into the public lexicon during the Gulf Wars against Iraq. 

We might perceive the day of the resurrection and its following week as a time of shock and awe. The overwhelming power of God was fully on display as the resurrected Jesus appeared to His followers over and over. God’s might was spectacularly displayed.

We would all like to think that if we were there we would get it, understand. But, that’s unlikely.

In the first hours after the resurrection Mary Magdalene understood. John the Apostle got it. The disciples on the road to Emmaus had their eyes opened and Simon Peter finally understood. The rest, well, it took them time.

As we proceed through this season of joy, we will arrive at that moment when Jesus is taken up into heaven, the Ascension. Even there, some of the Apostles did not believe. Scripture records in Matthew 28:17: When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some doubted.

Jesus had appeared over and over, He ate and drank with them, built a campfire, helped them with their catch, and repeatedly offered them peace.

My brothers and sisters, it is ok to be like Thomas, like the others who  still doubted. The problem comes when we persist in doubt and when doubt turns sour.

Jesus’ direction is very clear. It starts with the peace He gives us, a peace beyond the absence of conflict. It is a grace of peace that allows us to stand in the midst of conflict and still be at peace – because we have Jesus. So let us take Jesus’ command to heart: do not be unbelieving, but believe.”

Bible Study for Bright Week 2025

This week’s memory verse: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead — 1 Peter 1:3

  • 4/20 – Luke 24:1-12
  • 4/21 – Luke 24:13-35
  • 4/22 – Luke 24:36-39
  • 4/23 – Mark 16:1-8
  • 4/24 – Mark 16:9-13
  • 4/25 – Matthew 28:1-10
  • 4/26 – John 20:11-18

Pray the Week: Lord Jesus, I see the empty tomb and it fills me with hope. As You prevailed upon the disciples to remain with them, so prevail on me to always hold You close to me and live by Your Father’s vision for me.  Amen.