Corpus Christi Blog

Good morning.  Happy Trinity Sunday!  Many of you know me, but for those who do not, my name is Steve Mandarino and I have been serving as the Parish Manager of Corpus Christi for almost four years.

If you were here either of the past two weeks, you heard Father Chad discuss a book called Forming Intentional Disciples.  If you weren’t here, I invite you to review Father’s homilies on the church website.  Also, if you weren’t able to get a book last weekend, as we ran out, we have more on the way that should be here next weekend.  We are only asking for $5 to help offset part of the cost, which is a large discount provided by Father Chad because he feels the book is so valuable in content.

Last week was the first part of a 2 part homily series- and if you weren’t here, a reminder that my homilies are on our website.  Last week I provided some alarming statistics from the book Forming Intentional Disciples regarding how many American adults who were raised Catholic but now are not practicing their faith.  Do you recall the percentages of adults who are practicing- 30%, and 70% are not!  And another statistic saying that over half of the Catholics who do attend Church believe that one cannot have a relationship with God.  I want to make it clear that the book proposes those statistics are directly related.  One of the reasons why so many people have stopped practicing their Catholic faith is because they did not develop a personal relationship with God.  This book asserts that individuals who not know deep down in their souls how much God loves them and desires a relationship with them will pull away and search for love and happiness in other places.

I hope you are ready for a wonderful time in our Church.  We are beginning 4 Sundays of Feasts- today we celebrate the Feast of the Ascension, next week is Pentecost, followed by Trinity Sunday, and Corpus Christi.  And during this time of celebration,  I have decided to give a mini- 2 week homily series to help lay out the direction that I have discerned for our parish.

Our Gospel today, like the last and next couple weeks, is taken from John’s version of the Last Supper.  You might know that in John’s Gospel, Jesus teaches about the Eucharist in chapter 6, not at the Last Supper.  Instead, John uses the Last Supper as the setting for a great narrative in which Jesus gives his last and parting words to his disciples before he is to be handed over and crucified.  They are inspiring words indeed, I encourage you all to read and pray over John chapters 14-17. 

Are you a disciple?  Am I a disciple? That is the question each and every one of us must answer in our lives.   Are you a disciple?  Raise your hand if you would say you are.  So what are you a disciple of…. Or rather who or what do you follow?  Most would say a disciple of Jesus is someone who follows him.  After all, when we think of who the disciples were while Jesus was on earth, we think of Peter, John, Matthew, maybe Mary Magdalene, perhaps all the people Jesus healed, and other apostles.  They each had a common trait; they all left what they were doing and followed Jesus.  We can recall the story of the rich young man whom Jesus called to give all he had to the poor and follow Him, but unfortunately he wasn’t ready then to become his disciple. I wonder if he was ever ready to follow our Lord?