Enough for Us May 3

Feast of Saints Philip and James, Apostles

For I handed on to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures; that he was buried; that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures; that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve. 1 Corinthians 15:3-5

Jesus said to Thomas, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, then you will also know my Father. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” John 14:6-14

Piety

Let us pray: Jesus, you are enough for us. Despite the fact that we know this and believe it, you must be as frustrated with us as you were with Philip. Despite your friendship, we fill up our lives with such “stuff” – cars, homes, boats, motorcycles. Then we fill up our stuff with more stuff…like we don’t have enough furniture, food, clothing, books, movies, or music. Yet what we really need, only you can provide. Although we may stray and act like we get our lives filled with material goods, please be patient with us while we slowly turn back to you who are the way, the truth and the life. We set our hopes with Philip and James, who attained sainthood despite their human failings. May we put down our material goods and take up Philip’s invitation to Nathanial – “Come and see.” Amen.

Study

And whatever you ask in my name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it. John 14:13-14

http://www.usccb.org/nab/050307.shtml

You have to love the apostles more as you realize and recognize how much they were just like us. The more we learn about them, the more amazing their stories and the resulting faith they put into action.

However, before they did such great works, “greater ones than these,” it took all of Jesus’ efforts to help them understand what was happening and what they were leading in this unfolding Church. After following Jesus around the Holy Land for three years, listening to his every word, and witnessing all the signs and miracles he performed, they STILL did not understand the message fully.

Peter famously denied Jesus three times before becoming the “rock” upon which the church was built. Thomas, for some reason absent from the Upper Room, doubted the story of Jesus’ appearance after the Crucifixion until he put his hands in the wounds. But before either of those incidents, we encounter Philip saying, “Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.”

St. John devotes five chapters – nearly 25 percent of his entire Gospel – to Jesus and the disciples’ discussions at the Last Supper before they retire to the Garden to pray and Jesus is arrested. After all they have experienced over the last three years, Philip’s comment comes in the midst of this discussion. Can you hear the human frustration in Jesus’ voice as he answers Philip? “How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?”

Jesus pleads with his closest friends. “Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else, believe because of the works themselves.” These beliefs, summarized in today’s reading from Corinthians as a small version of the Credo that we share, is the cornerstone – this belief in Jesus as “the way, the truth and the life.” If we just believe, we get the greatest guarantee of all time:

“And whatever you ask in my name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it.”

Action

http://ncronline.org/NCR_Online/archives2/2007b/050407/050407j.php

According to this story linked above, The U.S. bishops, Catholic Relief Services, Catholic Charities USA, the National Catholic Rural Life Conference, and Network, a Catholic social justice lobby, are joining more than a dozen other religious groups in advocating reforms in federal farm policy that could be implemented through the Farm Bill now working its way through Congress.

Catholic News Service reports that the organizations have coalesced into a body called the Religious Working Group on the Farm Bill to propose changes in the legislation that they say would benefit farmers, rural communities and Americans’ nutritional needs.

“Passing a new Farm Bill is an important opportunity to reshape our agricultural policies to build a more just framework that better serves rural communities and vulnerable farmers in the U.S., overcomes hunger here and abroad, and helps poor farmers and their families in developing countries,” said an April 20 statement by Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn, N.Y., chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Domestic Policy.

The working group outlined a broad agenda of issues that would:

• Increase investments that combat rural poverty and strengthen rural communities;
• Strengthen and expand programs that reduce hunger and improve nutrition in the United States;
• Strengthen investment in policies that promote conservation and good stewardship of the land;
• Provide transitions for farmers to alternative forms of support that are more equitable and do not distort trade in ways that fuel hunger and poverty.
• Protect the health and safety of farm workers;
• Expand research related to alternative, clean and renewable forms of energy;
• Improve and expand international food aid in ways that encourage local food security.

Please contact your legislators in Washington and urge them to support comprehensive changes to the Farm bill that will accomplish the aims sought by the bishops and the church.