The Tale of Two Fruit Plants

 Deacon Kevin Gingras

April 28, 2024

Fifth Sunday of Easter

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/042824.cfm

Acts 9:26-31      Ps 22:26-27, 28, 30, 31-32

1 Jn 3:18-24    Jn 15:1-8

This is the tale of two fruit plants.  In my yard I have an apple tree out back and a blueberry bush out front.  The apple trees I never prune and they are now a bit out of hand - they bear bad fruit or no fruit at this point.  The blueberry bush in the front, however, I prune the dead branches and the ones that bear no fruit each year.  Because I do this we get a good crop of blueberries from it yearly.  Faith and I will pick and eat them right from the bush, you can’t get fresher than that!

Now I know nothing about pruning grape vines but back in biblical times that must have been what people were familiar with as it is so deeply rooted in the Old and New Testaments.  We hear it in Isaiah 5, The Song of The Vineyard.  We hear it in today’s Gospel as well.  We also read of it in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. In Chapter 1108:

In every liturgical action the Holy Spirit is sent in order to bring us into communion with Christ and so to form his Body. The Holy Spirit is like the sap of the Father's vine which bears fruit on its branches. 

I love that analogy.  God the Father sent his only Son into the world for our salvation.  God the Son ascended into Heaven and sent us God the Holy Spirit to give us the sap of the vine of Christ.  The nourishment we need to keep our souls alive!

Now sometimes pruning hurts.  We heard of our friend Paul, also known as Saul in today’s first reading.  He needed a lot of pruning.  Jesus spoke to him in a flash of light knocking him to the ground.  Saul was blind for three days, he didn’t eat or drink at all until Ananias healed him. Even years after his pruning and conversion the Apostles didn’t yet trust him.  Barnabas had to vouch for him.

I guess this brings the homily to us.  What do we need to prune from our lives?  What are the things that take away our sight of Jesus and how can we remove them?  Don’t worry, Jesus will help us to do this pruning, just reach out to Him. How? 

• Pray, and if you can, spend time in adoration with Jesus, and ask him to point out the dead branches in your life that need to be removed.  

• Receive the sacrament of Confession. Tell Him, in Confession, the sins you want to be pruned. Sure, sometimes some of the bad branches will grow back, and when they do go back to Confession again! 

• Receive the Eucharist in a state of grace.  When we receive the Eucharist, Christ turns us into tabernacle.  

If we do these things, along with proclaiming Christ to others Jesus will be more present to us!  In my morning prayer on Saturday  one of the intercessory prayers was:

You are present to all who preach your Gospel, and give power to their words - make us today preachers of your resurrection by our holiness in life.

You may wonder if it will work, will people come back to church because of something I say to them? A few men from the Holy Family Men’s group had sent out those flyers from one of Fr. Matt’s Homilies entitled Why Come To Mass on Sunday. We sent them out to all of you, but you attend church so our hope was you would give them to somebody you know who doesn’t go to Mass. We also sent them to parishioners on our mailing list we hadn’t seen in a while. After the 4:00 PM Mass Saturday a gentleman asked me if I was part of the Men’s ministry and wanted me to thank the men for the flyer. He said it has been 10 years since he has been to Mass and the flyer inspired him to return. Praise God! He told me “The lost sheep has been found’!

Today, upon our dismissal from Mass, our prayer should be that we go forth announcing the Gospel to the world just like St. Paul who was one of the greatest missionaries the Church has ever seen.

Mother Angelica tells us:

The Lord God has no one else but you.  You’d better get off your lead bottoms and go out there and change this pagan world!

Three Tabernacles

 

Deacon Kevin Gingras

December 24, 2023

4th Sunday of Advent

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/122423.cfm

2 Sm 7:1-5, 8b-12, 14a, 16     Ps 89:2-3, 4-5, 27, 29

Rom 16:25-27    Lk 1:26-38

Today, I want to talk about three tabernacles. The word tabernacle means ‘place of dwelling.’  Tabernacle #1 is from 2 Samuel; King David wants to make God a home:

When King David was settled in his palace, and the LORD had given him rest from his enemies on every side, he said to Nathan the prophet, "Here I am living in a house of cedar, while the ark of God dwells in a tent!"

Before the Temple was built by King Solomon, the Tabernacle was the moveable tent that housed the Ark of the Covenant while the Israelites were nomads in the desert. The Tabernacle Tent was 45 feet long, and The Ark of the Covenant was placed in a fifteen-foot cube towards the back part of the Tabernacle, called the Holy of Holies.  

The Ark was the link between God and Earth, and it was in the Holy of Holies where the high priest could enter only once a year on the Day of Atonement. The Day of Atonement, or Yom Kippur, is the highest holy day of the Jewish calendar. The High Priest would make an atoning sacrifice for the sins of the people.  This act of paying the penalty for sin brought reconciliation between God and His people. After the blood sacrifice was offered to the Lord, a goat was released into the wilderness to symbolically carry away the sins of the people. This "scapegoat" was never to return.

In a rarely-read passage in the Old Testament, the Ark of the Covenant is hidden by Jeremiah. We hear of this in the Second Book of Maccabees 2:4-7

The same document also tells how the prophet, …, ordered that the tent and the ark should accompany him, and how he went to the very mountain that Moses climbed to behold God’s inheritance. When Jeremiah arrived there, he found a chamber in a cave in which he put the tent, the ark, and the altar of incense; then he sealed the entrance. Some of those who followed him came up intending to mark the path, but they could not find it. When Jeremiah heard of this, he reproved them: “The place is to remain unknown until God gathers his people together again and shows them mercy.”

No, Indiana Jones did not find the Ark of the Covenant, and no, it’s not stored deep in some government archival building. Remember the Prophet’s words:

The place is to remain unknown until God gathers his people together again and shows them mercy.

This brings us to Tabernacle #2, the Ark of the New Covenant, which is Mary, the Mother of God.  Through Jesus, God is about to gather all of His people, whether Jew or Gentile, when the word becomes flesh in Jesus through Mary as the angel Gabriel speaks these words to her in today’s Gospel.

"Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom, there will be no end."

We know that through Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, sin entered the world. Through Mary’s yes, her Fiat, and the birth of Jesus, a man and a woman, that first sin can finally truly be reversed. Now is the time for God to gather His people together again and show them mercy. Mary is not only today’s second Tabernacle; Mary is also a new Ark of a New covenant.  Through her yes, salvation entered, the Word was made Flesh, and Jesus Christ was born.

So what could be the Tabernacle #3? Our church today has a lot of similarities to the Old Testament Tabernacle tent. When you enter a church, you will see golden lampstands. Back then, there was, to the right, a table for the Bread of the Presence. Today, to the right of our altar is the Credence Table that holds the unconsecrated bread that will soon become the True Presence of Jesus, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. Just before the giant curtain, there would also be an altar of incense. We have our altar here, and we also incense it at the beginning of most of our Masses. Finally, against the back wall, but no longer hidden, is the tabernacle that holds the remaining consecrated hosts after Mass. Jesus, the Son of God, is present in our tabernacle right now.  But that is not the third and final tabernacle I’d like to discuss. Tabernacle #3 is us. Once we receive Jesus in the Eucharist, we become a tabernacle; we hold within us our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

It is so important to remember that! After we receive Communion, we should return to our pews, kneel, and pray. Offering prayers of thanksgiving for finding us worthy to receive Him.  

A few weeks ago, a parishioner asked me why we have rules of not eating an hour before Holy Communion but no rules for after receiving. I didn’t know, so I looked it up, and here’s what I found from Catholic.com:

There is no present requirement for fasting after  Communion, but many books have recommended, as an act of reverence, not eating or drinking for 15 minutes after receiving –about as long as the sacred Species remains intact. If one remains at Mass until the closing blessing, one likely observes this recommendation even without realizing it.

Saint Alphonsus Liguori tells us:

“There is no prayer more agreeable to God, or more profitable to the soul than that which is made during the thanksgiving after Communion.”

 

Dress for the Banquet

October 11th, 2020 - 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/101120.cfm

Here I am trying to lose weight and I have to preach about feasting!

We have gone from discussing the vineyard the past few weeks right into a wedding feast.  We are done working in the vineyard and now get to reap the rewards of our labors at a banquet …  with God … in Heaven!  Well, some still refuse to attend the feast and Jesus is not afraid to point that out to the chief priests and elders since their hearts are still hardened.  Lately, the Parables of Christ are really zoning in on the Chief Priests, the Elders, the Scribes, and the Pharisees.

Today’s Gospel is actually two parables in one - that’s right, bonus parable this weekend!  The first is the parable of those who were invited to the wedding feast but refused to attend, some of the invitees even killed the servants who invited them.  Glad I didn’t have to deal with these folks when I planned my wedding 31 years ago.  Since these invited guests didn’t want to attend, the king opened the wedding feast to all, good and bad alike, and filled the hall with those people.

The second parable is about the man who snuck into the feast but wasn’t dressed properly, he didn’t have on a wedding garment so he was cast out.

That’s what I want to focus on, how to dress for the heavenly banquet so that we can get in?   If I do this I won’t be preaching about feasting and my diet can stay safe!

Regarding how to dress, Jesus isn’t talking about what clothes we wear or if we are up to the latest fashion trend or not.  Jesus is talking more about how we dress our souls.  Paul mentions how to dress in his letter to the Ephesians when he states: 

Ephesians 6:13-17

Therefore, put on the armor of God, that you may be able to resist on the evil day and, having done everything, to hold your ground. So stand fast with your loins girded in truth, clothed with righteousness as a breastplate, and your feet shod in readiness for the gospel of peace. In all circumstances, hold faith as a shield, to quench all [the] flaming arrows of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Put on the strength of the Holy Spirit when it comes to speaking about your faith.  Don’t fear telling others the truth of the Catholic faith but always do it in love, not by putting others down. 

Be humble also, and that doesn’t mean weak.  It means putting others' needs before yours when appropriate.  Wear a humble demeanor and allow that to show instead of wearing arrogance or pride. 

Paul talks of knowing how to live in humble circumstances in his letter to the Philippians today.  Currently, with everything going on,  a lot of us are learning to live a bit like this.  On the contrary, in Heaven, we will always have abundant circumstances instead of humble ones.  We will have a feast laid out before us, a feast more generous than we can imagine as the first reading from Isaiah states:

On this mountain, the LORD of hosts will provide for all peoples a feast of rich food and choice wines, juicy, rich food and pure, choice wines.

We are experiencing a very small dose of heaven here today at Mass.

Pope Saint John Paul II describes the Mass as “Heaven on Earth”  saying that “what we celebrate on Earth is a mysterious participation in the heavenly liturgy”.

Sitting in the church shouldn’t be the first time you hear the readings.  Find time to be quiet and reflect on the readings for Sunday prior to Sunday.  Reflect on what they are saying to you.  Where are the readings trying to set you straight?  Ask yourself, are you in line with God in every aspect of your life.  If not, correct that part, dress that part of your life for the wedding feast.  Prepare that part of your life for when you attend Mass, the wedding feast of the Lamb here on earth.

Think about the words of St. Gregory the Great when he stated:

“The heavens open and multitudes of angels come to assist in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.”

First Year Reflection

May 18, 2020, marked our one year anniversary for our ordination into the diaconate.  My brother deacons and I were asked if we would write a reflection on what our year was like for the Fall River diocesan deacon newsletter.  Here is a brief synopsis of what my first year as a deacon was like.

_____________________

It was the Grateful Dead who put it so eloquently when they said “what a long strange trip it’s been”. It just hasn’t been very long at all, only one year,  but what a year of strangely wonderful blessings it has been!  We are supposed to count our blessings so here goes!

Blessing #0 - The friends I made through this process.  I was ordained with 8 other men who I now consider “brothers” in Christ.  The journey was awesome and they made it even better.  This friend list also includes everyone else involved in this ordination process, teachers, priests, bishop(s), deacons, leaders, mentors, and speakers.  Zero is not a typo,  I’m a programmer so we always start with zero, plus, that’s why the Roman empire fell, there isn’t a zero in Roman numerals!

Blessing #1 - My church assignment. My family was truly blessed to be assigned to the church we currently attended Holy Family in East Taunton.  We were blessed that the current Deacon, Bob Craig, volunteered to step aside so I could remain there and that was my first huge blessing as a deacon.

Blessing #2 - Ministering the Sacraments.  On May 19,  a day after our ordination, I ministered my first Sacrament, the Baptism of baby Harper Lilley!  The family knew it would be a day after ordination and they were very supportive and excited with me!  Since then I have been able to minister at 11 other Baptisms as well as two Marriages and a whole bunch of Masses.  Indeed the sacraments are awesome and being able to minster them is wonderfully humbling!

Blessing #3 - Ministering at Funerals/Grave sides.  August 19th, the funeral of our Director of Religious Education.  This was one of the most difficult blessings I have partaken in.  Karen was such an integral part of our parish and a mentor to many, myself included.  Karen’s husband Paul is a Deacon in the Boston diocese and played a big role in my Diaconate.  Our parish was very close to both of them.

Blessing #4 - Serving on the altar with children.  My daughter Faith, who we adopted from China in the Fall of 2009 had been asking to be an altar server for a long time.  My son Adam volunteered to “come out of retirement” to help her.  We finally figured out all the logistics so my wife had a place to stand and sign for her (my daughter is deaf) and in July she served her first Mass with her big brother and dad! 

Blessing #5 - Eucharistic services at Life Care in Raynham.  Being able to visit the residents at Life Care has taught me a deeper respect and love of the Eucharist.  I have seen many of these residents break down into tears when receiving the Eucharist as it may have been weeks since they last received.  The enthusiasm and love which they receive our Lord, regardless of their current circumstances in life has been uplifting!  I hope we can return to this ministry sooner than later!

Blessing #6 - Being a Deacon in a Pandemic. In March the world flipped on its head and serving as a deacon changed a bit.  I found myself behind a camera, trying to stream live adoration and doing live stream stations of the cross from my dining room table.  The live stream of virtual adoration/rosary on Tuesday night did not go well for a while.  In the fourth week of failure, I went home to give up.  A big blessing came from one of our parishioners.  She wanted to thank me for my perseverance and added that her husband had passed away a few years ago and she had also lost a daughter and was alone now that she has been in lockdown.  She said she very much looked forward to the live stream and to the humor I added during all the failed attempts.  That changed my mind, I resolved to get it working, and we did, the next week and future weeks went well!

Blessing #7 - Catholic Trivia night!  My wife Allison got the idea after our Friday night stations of the cross live feed attendance fell off significantly after Lent.  We were wondering what we could do to stay in touch that would be either interesting or educational or fun!  The Holy Spirit blessed her with an idea that could be all three!  We started a Facebook live stream of Catholic Trivia from our dining room table and have been doing it for weeks now!  We even had a special “call-in” guest who went live with us in June, Fr. Kevin Cook, our last pastor who is now in Seekonk.

Blessing #8 - Preaching.  I feared this part of it the most but honestly, through prayer, adoration, and asking the Holy Spirit to guide me it has gone pretty good.  Sure, when I’m up there I sweat (sometimes a lot) but my comfort level has increased and I was actually looking forward to preaching again for the June 21st Masses after a couple of months off.

Blessing #9 - Adoration and benediction.  Wow, I can’t put this one into words but when I lift Jesus in the monstrance for benediction it is such an amazing, humbling and wonderful experience, one I had never even considered until I did this the first time.  The feeling, the warmth, the humility, the emotions I felt that night, and every night after is one you can only understand by doing benediction, praise God we deacons can!

These are by no means an exhaustive list of all the blessings I have received during my first year and I am certainly looking forward to what future blessings being a deacon in the Fall River diocese has to offer!