How does a person become a disciple of Jesus? The First Letter of John has an answer: You first have to know him.

FOR FOLKS WHO only go green on St. Patrick’s Day, it should be noted that today is Earth Day. People around the world are pleading the case for Mother Earth once more.

When Jesus appeared to the disciples in Jerusalem after the Resurrection, he commissioned them to preach repentence and forgiveness in his name to all the nations. They embraced their charge with gusto.        

We turn to God to ask for the forgiveness God has promised us.

"God has thus brought to fulfillment what he had announced beforehand.” The apostle Peter told the people that the God of the patriarchs—the God of their ancestors—had glorified Jesus, and Christ himself said in the gospel that he is the fulfillment of the law, the prophets, and the psalms.

The disciples on the road to Emmaus and those in the upper room experienced Jesus in bodily form and also in his role as rabbi. He helped them “connect the dots” of their Jewish tradition so they could see that the resurrection was the fulfillment of all their ancestors had hoped for.

Obedience calls for a listening and discerning heart. —Sister Charlene Diorka, S.S.J., vocationnetwork.org