Fifth Sunday of Easter C.  May 6, 2007.  Our Lady of Grace 5:15, 9:30, 6PM.   Acts 14: 21-27.  Revelation 21: 1-5a.  John 13:31-33a, 34-35.

Every time a child or an adult is baptized a potential saint enters the world.  Saints are very ordinary people who take following Jesus very seriously.  Often the most unlikely people make Christ present in the world in the most striking and impelling ways.  I would like to tell you the story of the person whom many say most closely resembles Jesus.

Francis was born in a little town in central Italy 825 years ago this year.  His father was a wealthy businessman.  Francis was a very handsome youth.  He loved to have a good time and he was very generous with his father’s wealth.  Therefore he had many friends among the party loving young people in his home town of Assisi.  Francis had heard about Jesus too, but following Jesus meant little to him.  Francis was into drinking, pleasure and tearing up the countryside with the other young rowdies of his day.  At age 19 Francis decided to become a knight so that he could go to war with a neighboring town.  He was captured and spent almost a year in prison. In prison his life began to change.  He realized that a life built on fun and parties alone are not only unsatisfying; it is also short lived and passing away.

One day fun loving Francis met a sick and rotting leper on the road. Leprosy is an ugly disease.  Francis not only gave the leper something, but he actually kissed him in a moment of kindness that was beyond his understanding.  Francis had taken a step closer to Jesus.  Francis’s father and his former friends did not approve of the change.  His father said, “Is this the gratitude you show to me?  I labored hard and amassed great wealth for you. Now you are wasting it on these miserable lepers.”   His former friends threw stones and mud at him.

One day Francis was praying in front of a crucifix in a broken down and ruined church.  From the crucifix Jesus said to him, “Francis, repair my church.”  Francis thought that Jesus was talking about the broken down building.  Jesus was really challenging Francis to repair the whole Catholic Church.  The Catholic Church was in very bad shape.  Most people were ignorant about their religion.  Wealth and pleasure were the concerns of most.  The pope, bishops and priests were often leading scandalous lives.  Responding to the voice of Jesus and wearing a sack for clothes and begging on the streets, Francis set out to reform the Church.  A number of wealthy people soon joined Francis, giving their wealth to the poor and preaching the good news of Jesus Christ in a community of poverty and great love.  The brothers and sisters of St. Francis soon spread throughout Europe.  Francis often told them, “Preach the Gospel with your lives – use words only when you have to.”

Francis and his brothers and sisters repaired and reformed the Catholic Church, not because they were powerful, but because they lived the way that Jesus commanded all of us to live.  Jesus said, “I give you a new commandment: love one another.  As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.  This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

At the height of the Christian Crusades to take back the Holy Land from the Moslems, Francis crossed the battle lines into the Moslem camp.  He had two intentions.  One was to convert the Moslems to Christ.  The other was to die for Christ as a Martyr.  The Sultan of Egypt listened to Francis very carefully and he was moved by his respectful, loving and humble proclamation of Christ.  The Sultan did not convert to Christianity.  He didn’t have Francis put to death for daring to preach about Christ to him either.  He sent the Christian holy man Francis back home safe to continue his work of reforming the Church in Europe.

Toward the end of his life while Francis was praying he received the marks of the wounds of Christ on his hands and feet.    While he was denied the gift of martyrdom, he now looked like Jesus in his crucified body.  Perhaps no other Christian in the entire history of the Church has looked as much like Jesus as Francis did.  To this day St. Francis of Assisi is one of the most beloved followers of Jesus among Catholics and Protestants alike.

The world is at war now as it was in the time of St. Francis.  The Catholic Church is in need of reform and rebuilding now as it was in the time of St. Francis.  God still sends ordinary people like you and me to seek peace in the world and to rebuild the Church.  In God’s mind there are no ordinary people.  There are only people called by God and empowered by the Holy Spirit in baptism and confirmation to be the presence of Jesus in the world of today.

Jesus said, “I give you a new commandment: love one another.  As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.  This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” The great Prayer of St. Francis describes the vocation that belongs to each of us in our world today:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

Where there is injury, pardon;

Where there is error, the truth;

Where there is doubt, faith;

Where there is despair, hope;

Where there is darkness, light;

And where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

Grant that I may not so much seek

To be consoled, as to console;

To be understood, as to understand;

To be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;

And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.

9:30 Mass:

Jesus said, “I give you a new commandment: love one another.  As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.  This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

When we receive communion Jesus enters into our hearts to make us look like him and act life him.

When we eat too many big Mac’s or too many French fries what happens to us?   We become very big and there starts being too much of us!

When we are nourished on Jesus in communion what happens to us?   We begin to look like Jesus and act like Jesus because Jesus changes us and makes us be just like He is. Communion is so powerful that we begin doing what Jesus would do and other people begin seeing Jesus in us and in the good way that we act.

I have three questions:

When we receive the small white host in communion what are we really receiving?

When we drink from the chalice what are we really receiving?

Why does Jesus come to us in communion?   (To make us look and act just like him)

For the powerful gift of communion that makes us more like Jesus we give God thanks and praise.

6PM Mass:

We are not fully alive until we start to act and live as Jesus did.

We are not fully an adult until we discover the joy of laying down our lives in love for God and in service to our neighbor as Jesus did.

God continues to be present in our world through each of us.  God continues to build up the world and the Church through each of us.  Our Confirmation candidates have the great responsibility and the great privilege of being Christ in the world.  They have the responsibility and the privilege of making our world a better place.  On Tuesday evening they will receive the Holy Spirit who will empower them to bring Christ and his love to a very needy yet blessed world.  We are very proud of them and we trust them with our world and our Church.  We pray that the Holy Spirit will guide them always.

Before they go to the Basilica for Confirmation we ask that they renew their baptismal vows.