6th Sunday of Easter Year A 2023

 

                                     6^th. Sunday of Easter (A) 

(Acts of the Apostles 8:5-8, 14-17; 1^st Peter 3:15-18; John 14:15-21)

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Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, notice that in today’s Gospel, Philip worked miracles as he proclaimed Christ in pagan Samaria– which means that the Lord backed up Philip’s proclamation by signs to attract men’s attention – but the Apostles, Peter and John, having come down from Jerusalem, still needed to:

Pray for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, for as yet the Spirit had not come upon any of them, they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.  Then they laid hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit.

Philip was one of the seven men of repute in last week’s readings specially designated, by popular choice and the Apostles’ blessing, to serve at table and take special care of the widows; he was not one of the Apostles breathed upon by the Risen Lord that they might personally receive and be able to personally bestow God’s Gift of the Spirit.

How clearly that shows what is truly, supremely, Christian: not miracles -- great blessings though they be -- but the gift of the SPIRIT OF JESUS!!

That is why – in Mother Church’s wisdom – our second reading today began:

            Beloved, sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts!

That is, use the Spirit with which you have been gifted to glorify Christ as the Holy One, our Redeemer and Saviour; but in all and above all, as our LORD and GOD!  Moreover, sanctify Him in your heart, that is, in all sincerity and with full hope, trust, and longing:

‘Oh, Lord Jesus, rule me.  In all the desires and aspirations of my mind and heart, come Lord Jesus, RULE IN ME!’

The Holy Spirit gifted us, is ours at the Personal request of Jesus, as we heard in the Gospel reading:

If you love Me, if you keep My commandments, I will ask the Father and He will give you another Advocate, the Spirit of Truth, to be with you always.

He is indeed a most special Gift, and a truly sublime pledge of love -- given us by the Father at Jesus’ request!

The world, however,

Cannot accept Him because it neither sees Him nor knows Him.

 But you, oh so privileged Catholic and Christian People of God,

            You know Him, because He remains with you and will be in you!

Originally, Eve listened to Satan and sinned.  Adam listened to Eve and sinned.  Both sinned by disobeying God’s direct command, which was, that they must not to eat of the fruit of the forbidden tree.

Now, Eve was led to sin by listening to Satan who used her concupiscence to stir up her pride.  Adam was led to sin by listening to Eve and there, Satan used Adam’s concupiscence to emphasize his weak-willed desire for an untroubled life.   Both sinned by disobedience because they had no true love for God; and because Adam and Eve both sinned as one against God, death – together with his minion -- suffering, entered human life

Now, when -- as we heard in our Gospel today -- the people of Samaria heard Philip proclaiming the Good News about Jesus, and when they saw him curing people who were suffering and driving out Satanic spirits in Jesus’ name, they were filled with joy and embraced the Good News and God’s saving grace.

What does God do today, to help us embrace the Faith proclaimed by Mother Church and love Him?

It can’t be miracles on demand.  Indeed not!  For over many past centuries and even in recent times we have been given glorious, and manifest, miracles and signs of God's great love.  But, in these our own days, the help we Catholics still have in Mother Church and can still embrace in our own hearts, has been told us anew today:

You know Him (the Holy Spirit of Jesus), because He remains with you (in Mother Church) and will be in you (if you want, through obedience)!

Therefore, dear People of God, I once again repeat St. Peter’s exhortation:

            Beloved, sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts!

We know Jesus as the Christ of God, because the Holy Spirit remains, forever, with Mother Church; and will be in each of us, personally, by the Eucharistic Gift of Mother Church, provided that we continue faithful-and-true to Him Who first called us, to Him Who died and rose from the dead for us, and to the Spirit gifted us!

Peter, in today’s second reading, was so confident -- urging us to sanctify Christ in our hearts -- that he was in no way embarrassed to declare that our sufferings as Christians for what is good, are themselves a truly authentic ‘sanctifying’ of Christ, since:

Christ also suffered for sins once, the Righteous for the unrighteous, that He might lead you to God … brought to life, by the Spirit. 

But the greatest question and test for our world today is: ‘What is SIN?’   What is the sin for which Jesus’ first public words demanded that we repent??

It is the sin condemned by the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament given by God to His Chosen People through Moses; the Ten Commandments which were affirmed and exemplified by Jesus in His life and teaching, death and resurrection.

That teaching of Jesus is confirmed and appropriated for us today by His Most Holy Spirit ever at work inspiring, guiding, and protecting Mother Church in her Gospel mission; and mankind’s slavery-to-sin is the reason why Jesus came among us offering salvation. For, apart from Jesus’ saving grace, sin cannot be overcome by the political correctness and social maneuverings of our modern Western world, which is, in fact, now being re-paganized to an unprecedented degree and depth in these our times!

The ‘world’ cannot receive the Spirit of Jesus because it does not recognize the reality of that sin which rules -- even by acclaim in its pleasurable aspects! -- in human lives and society today (Matthew 7:11):

If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children… 

The ‘world’ only wants to establish its own laws of right order and criminality in order to achieve its own desired way of life in society, to win human approbation, and to provide comforting self-justification.  And in all that, it wants to be Free from God, and will not recognize-and-reject the real sin present in human hearts!!

Shortly before His Crucifixion and subsequent Resurrection Jesus said to His Apostles:

In a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me, because I live and you will live.  On that day, you will realize that I am in My Father and you are in Me and I in you.   (John 14:19–2)

People of God, looking at the world around us, at the ever more modern versions of what used to be Christian society, we can surely say that that day, foretold by our Blessed Lord, has in some measure arrived, and that we would do well, therefore, to give more special heed than we have perhaps done before to His recommendations:

Whoever has My commandments and observes them is the one who loves Me.  And whoever loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and reveal Myself to him.

Let us, dear friends in Christ, calmly set sail, as it were, under such an aegis, allowing ourselves to be guided by the breathing of God’s most Holy Spirit filling the sails of our transformed worldly expectations and our freshly inspired heavenly aspirations; and, looking to neither right nor left, trust totally in Him our Brother Who died and rose again for us; and in Him, the Father, Who originally called us to His Son and still invites us by His Spirit to find eternal joy and peace in our true home with Himself the one, most loving Father of us all.