For the ancient Jews, Pentecost was one of the top three religious holidays. It had two important meanings.

First, on Pentecost, 50 days after the Passover (the word "Pentecost" comes from the Greek for "fifty"), the first fruits of the spring grain harvest were offered to God in a special sacrifice at the Temple. That may sound strange to people who live in a climate that has only one harvest each year. But in Palestine, they had two yearly harvests.

In this sense, it was highly appropriate that God sent the Holy Spirit to his Church in a public way on Pentecost. The Holy Spirit is the first fruit of the harvest of the New Covenant. The New Covenant is Christ giving us a new, redeemed life of grace. This life begins here on earth under the action of the Holy Spirit, but it will only reach its fulfillment - the full harvest - in heaven.

But there was a second meaning to the Jewish festival of Pentecost. It commemorated God giving Moses the Ten Commandments on Mt Sinai. Soon after the Israelites had miraculously escaped from Egypt, God sent them the Law, a guide for how they should live now that they were freed from slavery to Pharaoh.

In this sense too, it was appropriate that God sent his Church the Holy Spirit during that Festival. The Holy Spirit is the bond of unity between the Father and the Son. And the Law of the New Covenant, the Law of the Church, is unity. As St Paul says, the Church is a body with many parts, but it remains one, united body.

It is the Church's mission to reunite the human family that has been torn apart by sin. That's why all the visitors in Jerusalem heard the Apostle's words in their own languages. That's why as soon as the risen Jesus breathes on his Apostles; he instructs them to forgive sins.

Before the very eyes of his closest followers, 40 days after his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ ascended body and soul into heaven. What exactly does this word "ascended" mean? As we know, every year on August 15, we celebrate a different feast: Mary's assumption into heaven. The Catechism tells us: Mary was assumed into heaven - was assumed.

There's a difference here: Christ ascends; Mary is assumed. Christ is God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity become man. He is both fully God and fully man, a mystery so great that we cannot understand it completely.

Mary is immaculate (free from sin), and she is also the Mother of Christ and therefore properly honored as the Mother of God. But still, she is only human; she does not possess the divine nature, as Christ does. Therefore, she could not cause herself to ascend into heaven, as Christ did. Instead, God had to take her up into heaven, and so we say that she was assumed.

Christ's ascension, in other words, reveals his divinity, just as his resurrection did. Many people throughout salvation history have been raised or have raised others from the dead with the help of God's power. But only Christ rose from the dead on his own.

As true God, he holds power over life and death; he is omnipotent, all-powerful, "almighty" as we say each week in the Creed. And as true man, Jesus used that omnipotence to conquer death for our sake, to win our salvation, to redeem us. By bringing redeemed human nature up into heaven, he showed that along with being all-powerful, he is also all-good, all-loving.

Christ's ascension, then, reminds us that there is no limit to the confidence we can have in our God, because there is no limit to his power and goodness.

ILLUSTRATION: Forrest Gump Gets Something Right

In 1994 Hollywood released a popular film called "Forrest Gump," starring Tom Hanks. The film can be base at times but has some interesting insights. At one point in the story, when Forrest is feeling rejected by the people he loves, he gets an urge to just start running.

So, he walks out the door, jogs across the yard, and doesn't stop. In fact, when he gets to the ocean and runs out of road, he just turns around and runs the other way.

Throughout his run, he is videotaped on national news. Many people asked why he's running. What is the reason; "World peace? Women's rights?" But he simply answers, "I'm just running." Unintentionally, he sparks a huge national following.

The humorous and meaningful event that ends his journey takes place in the middle of a desert. Forrest stops, longhaired and long bearded, and turns around.

The handful of sweaty joggers who have followed him shush each other: "Quiet, he's goanna say something." "I'm kind a' tired," he says, "I think I'll go home now." Forrest walks through the small and silent crowd, and one of them yells after him, "Well, what are we supposed to do?!"

All people are looking for the answers to life's deepest questions. But since our thirst for truth and happiness is infinite (because that's how God made us), no finite worldly thing can satisfy us.

The characters in the film mindlessly following Tom Hanks' Gump personified that thirst for meaning. The fact that their hero abandons them without any explanation illustrates the inability of the things of this world (money, fame, politics, pleasure) to provide that meaning; eventually, we get tired of them; they let us down.

Only Christ is infinite goodness, power, and wisdom; only he is "the Way, Truth, and the Life" that we are searching for.

APPLICATION: Sharing the "God-News"

Today the Church is inviting us to reflect on this great mystery of our faith, Christ's ascension into heaven. As we do so, we should feel our confidence in God renewed and strengthened.

Jesus is ruling history right now. None of the difficulties, injustices, and problems that we face as individuals, families, and societies is outside of his knowledge or power.

He is at work in all things, even if it is sometimes hard for us to see exactly how. As today's Mass prayers remind us: "Christ, the mediator between God and man, judge of the world and Lord of all, has passed beyond our sight, not to abandon us but to be our hope" (Preface for Ascension I).

How can we express this hope, this confidence in God? By sharing it with others. Jesus didn't tell his followers that he was "one of the many ways, truths, and lives that are out there." And none of the other founders of world religions rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, and let their Resurrection and Ascension be witnessed by hundreds of followers.

Only Jesus Christ is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good. Only his mercy can heal hearts that have been wounded by sin and evil. Only his wisdom can untangle the moral knots that today's secular culture has tied in the minds of our neighbors. And we know Jesus Christ! We are the ones who can share the good news with those who don't!

When Jesus ascended into heaven, he didn't take the members of his Church with him. Instead, he entrusted his mission to their care: "Go out to the whole world...!" he said as he ascended.

That mission, to follow Christ and help others do the same, is still in full swing today. It's in our hands, and if to fulfill our part we do our best, surely God will do the rest.

One of God's favorite ways to describe himself is by saying he is like a good shepherd. Jesus did so more than once, as he does in today's Gospel.

In the Old Testament, the comparison is everywhere: God chose shepherds to be the Patriarchs; he chose shepherds to be Israel's first kings. The prophets ceaselessly speak of Israel as a flock and God as their shepherd. The image returns again and again in the Book of Psalms, as in the beautiful expression from today's Psalm: "Know that the Lord is God; he made us, his we are; his people, the flock he tends."

We are used to this image, but even so, the Church likes to remind us of it, frequently. Why? What is it about this image that God likes so much?

It is interesting to note that among world religions, this image is unique to Judaism and Christianity. Even though most primitive religions are polytheistic, they usually express some inkling that behind all the powers of the universe there is one supreme god.

Usually, this god is associated with the sky, or the sea, or the mountain - with some natural phenomenon that the culture depends on. In none of these instances, however, is god seen as a divine shepherd of humankind?

Comparing God to a good shepherd can only happen in a religion that recognizes a special connection between the human person and God - for instance, that man is created in the image of God.

Only then does the comparison make sense, because a God who is a good shepherd is a God who walks with his people and cares about their every joy and sorrow. That, Jesus tells us, is what our God is like.

Footprints

This was the message of Christ's Passion: Jesus is not a God who stays aloof from our suffering. He comes down into the valley of darkness, takes our hand, and saves us through our suffering.

One of the most well-known modern Christian poems expresses this closeness of God with memorable beauty and simplicity. You have probably heard of it. It's called "Footprints".

It was written in 1936 by a girl named Mary Stevenson. Mary had lost her mother at age six. She grew up in poverty and hardship as her father struggled to raise eight children during the Great Depression. One cold winter's night when she was 14 years old, she was locked out of the house. As she sat shivering on the doorstep, she wrote "Footprints" on a scrap of paper. I would like to read it.

Think about young Mary Stevenson struggling to survive, sitting out in the cold, and writing this. And think about what God, the good shepherd, was thinking as he watched over her that night.

One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord. / Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky. / In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand. / Sometimes there were two sets of footprints, other times there were one set of footprints. / This bothered me because I noticed that during the low periods of my life, when I was suffering from anguish, sorrow or defeat, I could see only one set of footprints. / So I said to the Lord, "You promised me Lord, that if I followed you, you would walk with me always. / But I have noticed that during the most trying periods of my life there have only been one set of footprints in the sand. / Why, when I needed you most, you have not been there for me?" / The Lord replied, "The times when you have seen only one set of footprints in the sand, is when I carried you."

It's just a poem, just a story. But it rings true. Christ is our shepherd, and, as he reminds us in today's Gospel passage, if we trust in him, nothing, not even hardship and suffering, can "take us out of his hand".

Staying Tuned to His Voice

Unfortunately, life in today's world is noisy, and it is not always easy for us to hear the voice of our good shepherd.

We are bombarded with so many other voices, so many images, so many ideas. Christ knows this, yet he still tells us, "My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me."

What gives Christ so much confidence in our ability to stay close to him and avoid the traps set by poachers and wolves? It is prayer, one of God's greatest gifts to us, and one that we often take for granted.

Christ is always paying attention to us, just as a good shepherd pays attention to his sheep. He is always speaking to us, just as a good shepherd walks ahead of his flock talking and singing, so they can hear him and follow along. No matter how noisy, dark, or stormy it gets, he knows how to make his voice heard in our hearts.

We can always tune into it - that's the gift of prayer. The server never goes down, the reception never goes bad: as soon as we turn the attention of our hearts to our good shepherd, he makes his voice heard. God is always online, waiting for us to turn our attention to him, so he can guide us to the meaningful life we long for.

The sheep who wanders away and gets stuck in a ravine or attacked by wolves cannot blame the shepherd. Just so, when our lives don't fill us with the meaning we long for, before blaming Jesus we should take an honest look at our prayer lives: do we pray? Do we strive to pray better?

Today, as Jesus renews his commitment as our good shepherd, let's renew our commitment to be his good sheep, to give daily prayer the place it ought to have in our lives.

In the gospel on the third Sunday of Easter we read the boat was empty; something was missing. They set out; but they set out without Jesus. Isn't that sometimes the case with all of us? We want to trust in ourselves, we don´t want to have to rely on God.

And at the same time, deep down we really do want to rely on God, we want to know that someone is in charge, that all these wayward paths converge upon the goal. But we get confused and turn to what we're comfortable with.

The apostles do exactly that. They go fishing, but they are fishing without the Lord. And so, they don't catch anything. Sometimes God allows our best-laid plans to come crashing down around us. He doesn't do this to torment us, but to teach us to trust in him.

Their embarrassment and frustration must have been overwhelming. Fishermen tend to be proud of their skill set, and when they're skunked it's humiliating. And then, to make matters worse, Jesus shows up on the shore and asks if they've caught anything.

This is like rubbing salt in an open wound. And you can imagine the way they growled in response "no, we haven't caught anything." And they must have been thinking to themselves, "and mind your own business." But the apostles needed to recognize their own weakness. They needed to vocalize their own inability to do anything without Jesus. And when they do that, he acts.

He fills the boat with 153 types of fish. According to St Jerome, there are 153 types of fish in the ocean. So that number represents above all the fullness of the Church. But it also represents the fullness of our own lives when we give them over to Christ. He fills our emptiness with his friendship. He gives us meaning and purpose.

He fills our lives with wonder; he fills our lives with love.

Back from the Brink with Mother Teresa

Brother Andrew from the Missionary Brothers of Charity tells the following story.

One day Mother Teresa received a letter written by a man on the day of his intended suicide. He wrote that, on the preceding afternoon, he had worked out all the details for what seemed to him a perfectly "rational" suicide.

And then, quite by accident, he came across Malcolm Muggeridge's biography of Mother Teresa. Bored and with nothing else to do, he started to read it. As he read, he found that book, or rather that life, giving him a new interest in life, and, as he finished it, he moved back from the brink of suicide to begin life anew.

The example of Mother Teresa, until then unknown to him, had given him hope. This man had discovered that his boat was empty. But by the example of a living saint, he realized that it could be full.

Give, and you will receive

When we feel empty, the tendency is to close in on ourselves. But that's a huge mistake. Just like the apostles, we're tempted to return to our comfort zone. Theirs was fishing. What's mine? Food or shopping or ESPN or wine… We're familiar with them all. They're good things in small doses. But if we turn to them to fill us, they leave us empty.

One of the best ways to break out of those doldrums is to give ourselves to others. Break out of that protective shell and give.

How? Here are a few suggestions. Let's pick one of these, or something else that comes to mind during the Mass, and work on it this week.

• Visit someone who's alone. Or at least call.
• Invite a friend to come to Mass sometime.
• Say a prayer for someone who's suffering.
• Resolve to do three kind acts for your spouse each day (or for your siblings).

We're in the middle of the Easter season. Jesus wants to fill our boat with the joy of his presence. As we serve him in others, we begin to experience that joy more and more.

When we receive Christ today, really present in the Eucharist, we ask him to help us to give ourselves to others. And we trust that through Him, with Him, and in Him, what seems empty can become truly full. 

Death entered into this world by sin (Romans 5:12).So, all will die, with the exception that those who are alive at the return of Christ at the end, will never die (1 Thessalonians 4:13-17).In verse 17: "Then [at His return, and after the resurrection of the dead] we the living, will be taken together with them [the risen dead] in the clouds to meet the Lord." (Cf. 1 Cor 15:51)

There will be a resurrection of all, as St. Paul explain the First Corinthians chapter 15.Those who have been faithful to Christ will rise glorious, their bodies transformed on the model of the risen body of Christ, who could travel instantly at will, could ignore closed doors and come through anyway, but yet had real flesh, St. Paul says the risen body is "spiritual." (15:44)It is still flesh, but such that the flesh is completely dominated by the soul, so that it can no longer suffer or die.The Bible tells us that when Jesus returns to earth, he will physically raise all those who have died, giving them back the bodies they lost at death.

These will be the same bodies people had in earthly life –but our resurrection bodies will not die and, for the righteous, they will be transformed into a glorified state, freed from suffering and pain, and enabled to do many of the amazing things Jesus could do with his glorified body (see 1 Cor. 15:35-44, 1 John 3:2).

The resurrection of the body is an essential Christian doctrine, as the apostle Paul declares: "If the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised.If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished." (1 Cor. 15:13-18)

Because, as Paul tells us, the Christian faith cannot exist without this doctrine, it has been infallibly defined by the Church.It is included in the three infallible professions of faith –the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed –and has been solemnly, infallibly taught by ecumenical councils.

All Catholics are invited to once again focus on the ultimate goal, namely Heaven.Knowing that one day our bodies will be resurrected and unite with souls and then live in eternity, then we will direct all things in this world to achieve eternal happiness.This dogma can help us to always be steadfast in living life in this world, persevering in love, and always striving for holiness, so that in the end, we will become new people in Christ and live happily ever after in Heaven forever.The death of Christ opens the door of peace between us and God and through Christ's sacrifice we can gain salvation and eternal life.

Fr. Antonius David Tristianto, O.Carm.

1. The Diocese is saddened that many citizens, including many brothers and sisters in Christ, have died because of the COVID-19 disease. Bishop Stephen Chow will celebrate a special requiem mass to the faithful who passed away during the pandemic on Apr 27 (Wed) at 6:00 PM at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. This special requiem mass is open to the public and will also be live-steamed through the official website of the Diocese.
2. St. Anne's Church is now open to the public and church services will resume as per the regular schedule listed below. As well, the schedules for Mothers' Prayer Group [Tue 11:00 AM (Chinese) | Wed 6:00 PM (English)] and Legion of Mary [Sun, 10:15 AM (Tagalog/English)] are back to normal.
3. Please refer to the Chancery Notice (Apr 20^th) with regard to the guidelines all must observe upon resumption of public masses, such as "Vaccine Pass" regulations, mask-wearing, social distancing, alternatives to attending the Sunday Mass, etc.
4. The new WhatsApp number for St. Anne's is 6540-9055. Kindly update to continue to receive parish news and announcements.
5. Due to the epidemic situation, the parish is facing financial difficulties and we hope that our brothers and sisters in Christ will enthusiastically donate to support the parish's daily expenses (Evangelism, Facility Maintenance, etc.).The donation methods are as follows:
   
   • Cash/cheque to parish donation box
   • Cash/cheque to parish office, in-person or by mail
   • iBank transfer: St. Anne's Church, bank account (Please send deposit slip to parish): ICBC (072) 713-01000-3995

Parish address: 1 Tung Tau Wan Road, Stanley | Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

All cheques should be made payable to "St. Anne's Church", with 'DONATION', 'your name, address and contact phone' labelled on the back of your cheque.

All donations ($100 and up) are tax deductible. Please indicate "receipt required" on your donation, if needed.

The gospel seems to have a strange focus today. We're in the Easter Season, and joy is everywhere. Spring is in the air. The days are getting longer. Christ is Risen!

So why does St. John keep emphasizing Christ's wounds in the gospel we just heard? As soon as Jesus walks into the room where the disciples were, he shows them his hands and his side. He shows them the wounds of his crucifixion.

Thomas isn't there. He returns later, and the others excitedly tell him, "We have seen the Lord!" But he replies: "I won't believe it until I see and touch the wounds." He does see and touch the wounds, and that leads him to exclaim, "My Lord and my God!"

John wants to remind us that God so loved the world that he gave us his only son. Jesus died for you and for me. Jesus has saved us. And his wounds are his identity card. They shout out to us that God's mercy is more powerful than death.

All this is tied in with the special feast we're celebrating today on Divine Mercy Sunday. Mercy is when God's love meets our brokenness. We all need God's mercy. And we all need to see God's mercy.

As Pope Francis, paraphrasing Pope Benedict XVI, once said, "The name of God is mercy." And the wounds of Christ, visible for all eternity, are the vivid reminder of God's mercy. It's not enough to know abstractly that the name of God is mercy. We need to see it. We need to be reminded of it.

So, we can say that the mercy of God comes to us through Christ's wounds.

St Peter makes a strange announcement to us today. We are surrounded by the joy of Christ's definitive victory over sin and death, a victory we share through our faith and the sacraments. And Peter mentions this victory. But then he says that he and the other Apostles have been commissioned by God to preach and to testify that Jesus "is the one appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead."

In the midst of his joyful Easter discourse, Peter brings up that most uncomfortable and somber topic: judgment.He reminds us, at the moment when we are all supposed to be full of joy and delight, that on a day not too far away, we will all go before the throne of Jesus Christ and be judged.

It's not news for us. Every Sunday we say we believe that Jesus "will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead." And yet, what place does judgment have amidst the joy of Easter? Judgment is frightening, isn't it?

Partly. But it is also our greatest source of hope. Justice is not done in this world. Here the innocent suffer, good guys get trampled on, and evil prospers. And yet, Christ rose from the dead to prove that suffering and injustice will not be the last word.

And so, all the losses we suffer here in this fallen world because we follow Christ, by struggling to be honest, pure, faithful, kind, and attentive to the needs of our neighbors, all that hardship and humiliation that comes from following Christ here on earth will be made up for a hundredfold on Judgment Day, when Christ will set everything right.

The Resurrection is Christ's promise that justice will be done.

Jesus has risen, and his personal victory over death and evil is also his promise of everlasting justice still to come. This promise should fill us with spiritual relief and joy - the joy of Easter. It should give all Christians great confidence. It is worth it to follow Christ, even if the Christian path is narrow and steep.

But this central truth also has one very practical application that we must never forget. Since God has promised to take care of judging our neighbors, justly and mercifully, we don't have to. We are called to love our neighbors as ourselves, not set ourselves above them by condemning them.

This doesn't mean we should be imprudent, or naïve. Jesus doesn't mean we should hire violent criminals to be our baby-sitters. But he does mean that we should refuse to believe bad things we hear about other people unless we see the evidence ourselves.

And he means that we should always avoid speaking badly of other people, just as we hope they will not spread evil news about ourselves. Even when we know they have done wrong, we do not know the whole story - only God does. It is not our job to gossip.

We should think well of everyone, even making excuses for them: "Forgive them, Father," Jesus said from the cross, "for they do not know what they are doing."

The joy and peace of Easter, of Christ's resurrection and his promise to guide history to a fair and glorious conclusion, should fill our hearts today as we receive our Lord in Holy Communion, bodily or spiritually.

And if we promise, with his help, to leave judging our neighbors up to Christ, that joy and peace will have a much better chance of staying in our hearts.

"If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ cannot have been raised either, and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is without substance, and so is your faith."

(1 Corinthians 15:13-14)

"The Resurrection … is the crowning truth of our faith in Christ, a faith believed and lived as the central truth by the first Christian community" (ccc 638). The Resurrection is Christ's promise to those who remain faithful to the end.

Saint Paul wrote to the Church community in Corinth regarding "the mystery of Christ's resurrection as a real event" (ccc 639). In 56 A.D. he reminded them: "I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day." (1 Corinthians 15:3-4)

Throughout the New Testament we are reminded that the Resurrection of Christ is at once an historical and transcendent event. "Christ does not reveal himself to the world, but to his disciples," (ccc 647) says the Catechism. "Why do you seek the living among the dead?" was the question asked of the first witnesses to the empty tomb. "He is not here, but has risen" (Luke 24:5-6) is the answer offered. Referring to this passage from Saint Luke's Gospel, the Catechism correctly points out that "in itself it is not a direct proof of Resurrection (but) … its discovery by the disciples was the first step toward recognizing the very fact of the Resurrection" (ccc 640).

The enduring faith that developed among the first community of believers is based on reliable witnesses known to many of the early Christians. Who were these early witnesses? Mary Magdalene, Peter, James and the other apostles including "the doubting Thomas" are the primary "witnesses to his Resurrection" but Saint Paul also speaks about more than 500 other people to whom Jesus appeared on a single occasion. (See 1 Corinthians 15:4-8; Acts 1:22). The New Testament writings reveal the first witnesses as crucial to the Resurrection narrative.

On Easter evening, when Jesus revealed himself to the Eleven apostles (minus Judas), "he upbraided them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen" (Mark 16:14). The Catechism explains: "For they had not believed the holy women returning from the tomb and had regarded their words as an 'idle tale'" (ccc 643).

It is only "by means of touch and the sharing of a meal (that) the risen Jesus establishes direct contact with his disciples" (ccc 645). In this way he demonstrates that "he is not a ghost" and "that the risen body in which he appears to them is the same body that had been tortured and crucified, for it still bears the traces of his Passion" (ccc 645). Yet, the Resurrected body of Jesus also "possesses the new properties of a glorious body: not limited by space and time but able to be present how and when he wills" (ccc 645).

It is most apparent that "Christ's Resurrection was not a return to earthly life" (ccc 646) as was the case when he raised his friend Lazarus from the dead after having been in the tomb for more than four days (John 11:1-44). Nor was it the same as the other "resurrection miracles" that Jesus performed like the raising of Jairus' daughter to life (Matthew 9:18-26) or the unnamed young man of Naim back to life (Luke 7:11-17). Later, these people underwent natural death but Jesus did not. In his risen body, Christ "passes from the state of death to another life beyond time and space" (ccc 646).

Technically speaking, "no one was an eyewitness to Christ's Resurrection" (ccc 647). However, "although the Resurrection was an historical event that could be verified by the sign of the empty tomb and by the reality of the apostles' encounters with the risen Christ, still it remains at the very heart of the mystery of faith as something that transcends and surpasses history." (ccc 647).

Fr. Antonius David Tristianto, O.Carm.