Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] Speaker A: Welcome to Sundays with Bishop Ken, a weekly podcast brought to you by the publishers of Little Books of the Diocese of Saginaw.
This Lent, we use our Sundays to learn more about the parts of the mass and their significance to our faith, life, and journey.
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We are pleased to spend this quiet time with you today.
[00:01:15] Speaker B: Jesus is risen. It's Easter Sunday, and we're glad you're here.
Before we reflect on the glory of the resurrection, we begin with an Easter story about good Father Gus.
Born into slavery, John Augustus Tolton was baptized at St. Peter Church in Brush Creek, Missouri. His father escaped slavery to join the Union army and fight for freedom, while his mother fled with the children to Quincy, Illinois.
Although the family was free, it suffered painful discrimination within its community and even within the church. With the help of an irish priest who sensed Augustus had a call to the priesthood, Augustus graduated from St. Peter's School.
However, not a single seminary in America would accept a black man at that time. In the 1880s, a black man becoming a priest was thought impossible.
Yet nothing is impossible for God.
With the help of that same priest and others, Augustus entered seminary in Rome and six years later was ordained. He expected to serve as a missionary priest in Africa and instead was assigned to return to the United States, where he became the first american black priest.
His gentle ways and capacity to love, forgive, and serve people of every color, despite the prejudice he himself experienced, witnessed to the gospel message known as good Father Gus, he established St. Monica's Church on Chicago's south side as a national parish for black Catholics. At just 43 years old, the pioneer priest known for his stirring sermons and beautiful singing voice died of heat stroke. He was declared venerable by Pope Francis in 2019.
On Easter Sunday, 1886, Father Tolton celebrated his first mass at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome to our Easter Sunday gospel.
But at daybreak on the first day of the week, they took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.
While they were puzzling over this, behold, two men in dazzling garments appeared to them. They were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground. They said to them, why do you seek the living one among the dead? He is not here, but he has been raised. Remember what he said to you while he was still in Galilee? That the son of man must be handed over to sinners and be crucified and rise on the third day, and they remembered his words.
Then they returned from the tomb and announced all these things to the eleven and to all the others.
The women were Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary, the mother of James. The others who accompanied them also told this to the apostles, but their story seemed like nonsense and they did not believe them.
Luke, chapter 24, verses one through eleven.
The disciples were caught entirely off guard. They didn't expect this, and they didn't even believe it until later, when they saw the risen Lord himself.
Do I believe it? The Lord is alive. Now present with me. There's nothing to stop me from connecting with and experiencing the risen Lord right here.
That's a fine thing to do on an Easter Sunday.
Have a blessed and happy Easter.
[00:06:03] Speaker A: Thank you for sharing some quiet time with the Lord today.
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May your day be blessed.
