Answering the Call
May 11, 2025
Fourth Sunday of Easter
Helen Weber-McReynolds, RWCP
Acts 12: 1-16; Ps. 100; An excerpt from the keynote address to the Senecca Falls Convention of July 19, 1848, by Elizabeth Cady Stanton;
John 13: 33-34; 21: 15-19
“Quick! Get up!” These are the words from our first reading by which Peter realized that God’s call to him was very different than what he originally thought it would be. He thought he would be executed for teaching about Jesus, as James had been. But now someone was helping him to escape from Herod’s prison and out past the iron gates of the city. Now what? What else did God have in mind for Peter? To what else was he being called?
“In every generation God calls some men and women for the utterance of truth, a heroic action.” These words from our second reading help us understand our call in this generation, to stand up and utter the truth for our time. For the words inscribed on Stanton’s proverbial banner, “Equality of Rights,” have still not been realized. The traditional Catholic Church still refuses to recognize the call the Holy Spirit has made to women and people of all genders and sexualities to serve as ordained ministers. So we have chosen to take up the banner and proclaim this truth for ourselves, and find and build a new way of being church in which all are truly recognized as created in God’s image.
“Peter, do you love me?” are the words in the Gospel by which Jesus called Peter back into relationship, and into forgiveness. Jesus asked three times, for Peter had denied him three times. Peter seemed oblivious, becoming annoyed when the question was repeated. Had he already forgotten abandoning Jesus when the authorities accused him of being Jesus’ follower? Or was he so ashamed that he pretended to have forgotten?
How do we react when we realize we have rejected God’s call to us? We all fail at times. I read some very wise words about this kind of failure this week. They were: “Learning how to receive critical feedback when we’ve fallen short is a spiritual practice that must be nurtured in order to make discipleship sustainable” (enfleshed). So to truly follow Jesus we must be willing to admit our mistakes and ask forgiveness. And we must do this not just once, but over and over, as a regular practice. And then we must prove our true desire to follow Jesus by fufilling his other instruction: “Feed my sheep.”
May 11, 2025
Fourth Sunday of Easter
Helen Weber-McReynolds, RWCP
Acts 12: 1-16; Ps. 100; An excerpt from the keynote address to the Senecca Falls Convention of July 19, 1848, by Elizabeth Cady Stanton;
John 13: 33-34; 21: 15-19
“Quick! Get up!” These are the words from our first reading by which Peter realized that God’s call to him was very different than what he originally thought it would be. He thought he would be executed for teaching about Jesus, as James had been. But now someone was helping him to escape from Herod’s prison and out past the iron gates of the city. Now what? What else did God have in mind for Peter? To what else was he being called?
“In every generation God calls some men and women for the utterance of truth, a heroic action.” These words from our second reading help us understand our call in this generation, to stand up and utter the truth for our time. For the words inscribed on Stanton’s proverbial banner, “Equality of Rights,” have still not been realized. The traditional Catholic Church still refuses to recognize the call the Holy Spirit has made to women and people of all genders and sexualities to serve as ordained ministers. So we have chosen to take up the banner and proclaim this truth for ourselves, and find and build a new way of being church in which all are truly recognized as created in God’s image.
“Peter, do you love me?” are the words in the Gospel by which Jesus called Peter back into relationship, and into forgiveness. Jesus asked three times, for Peter had denied him three times. Peter seemed oblivious, becoming annoyed when the question was repeated. Had he already forgotten abandoning Jesus when the authorities accused him of being Jesus’ follower? Or was he so ashamed that he pretended to have forgotten?
How do we react when we realize we have rejected God’s call to us? We all fail at times. I read some very wise words about this kind of failure this week. They were: “Learning how to receive critical feedback when we’ve fallen short is a spiritual practice that must be nurtured in order to make discipleship sustainable” (enfleshed). So to truly follow Jesus we must be willing to admit our mistakes and ask forgiveness. And we must do this not just once, but over and over, as a regular practice. And then we must prove our true desire to follow Jesus by fufilling his other instruction: “Feed my sheep.”
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