Pentecost Year A 2017

PENTECOST (A) 2017

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, I have not given any particular Scripture references because it is my intention to give you an overall picture of the sublime significance and importance of today’s celebration of our Christian faith.

I was much struck by Our Risen Lord’s words to Mary Magdalen (John 20:17):

           

Jesus said to her, “Stop holding on to Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father.  But go to My brothers and tell them, ‘I am going to My Father and your Father, to My God and your God.’”

They reminded me of a singularly important phrase used repeatedly throughout the Old Testament History of Salvation beginning with Abram/Abraham:

When Abram was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said:  Between you and Me I will establish My covenant: you are to become the father of a host of nations.   No longer shall you be called Abram; your name shall be Abraham, for I am making you the father of a host of nations. I will maintain My covenant with you and your descendants after you throughout the ages as an everlasting pact, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.  I will give to you and to your descendants after you the land in which you are now staying, the whole land of Canaan, as a permanent possession; and I will be their God.”   (Genesis 17:1–8)

But hadn’t God been God to Abram long before making this covenant with him?  Had He not caused Abram to leave his country and his kindred and his father’s house (Gen. 12:1)?

Had He not saved Abram’s wife from Pharaoh, delivered the four kings into Abram’s hands between Dan and Hobah?  Had He not already made great promises to Abram whose belief we are told was reckoned to him as righteousness?

However that may be, the Lord now says to Abram:

I will establish My covenant and will maintain My covenant with you and your de- scendants after you throughout the ages as an everlasting pact, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.

Surely that is tantamount to saying that all that He had done before for Abram was not really God’s idea of being God!

What is different this time?  First of all, notice that God’s opening words are to identify Himself, I am God the Almighty, EL SHADDAI, whereas previously He spoken and appeared to Abram anonymously; and secondly, of course, notice that God here gives Abram a new name, Abraham; thirdly, there is a covenant established between them, an immutable determination of God’s purpose, which called for a corresponding and new … hence the new name … self-dedication of Abram/Abraham.   In other words, we have here a new, personal, irrevocable, mutual relationship, and it is under such conditions that we can, so to speak, hear God saying: ‘Ah, that’s something like being a God’.

We next come across the expression, ‘I will be your God’ when, in fulfilment of God’s promises to Abraham, the Israelites were about to be taken out of Egypt and established as the People of God on Mount Sinai.  There, the Lord appeared to Moses commissioning him to speak to the people saying (Exodus 6:6-7):

I am Yahweh (conf. v. 3) I will free you from the burdens of the Egyptians … I will take you as My own people, and I will be your God.

Therefore, having led the captives out of Egypt, the Lord made a nation out of them and established them as the People of God by entering into a covenant with them saying:

If you live in accordance with My statutes and are careful to observe My commandments, I will make My dwelling among you, I will walk among you and will be your God and you shall be My people.  (Leviticus 26:3,11-12)

But again, had He not been their God before: was He not their Creator and Sustainer, had He not predestined them according to His promise to Abraham 500 years before?  Had He not accepted their worship which no doubt they made in good faith to the gods of their forefathers?  All these things are true and accord with a rational, natural, idea of God, but obviously that was not God’s idea of being God of a people, so what is so special about this new situation?

Note again that there is a Covenant, this time with a people expressing God’s unswerving will for the Israelites about to be formed as the People of God.  God would not accept to be in the situation of a temporary tenant of the people’s affections and will …. One whose authority and love could be rejected or terminated at will.  Secondly, we have a further self-revelation by God: He wants to be known by His People:  notice this striking and most instructive difference compared with His self-revelation to Abraham (cp. Exodus 6:2-3):

And God said to Moses  ….  I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as El Shaddai, but by My name Yahweh, I did not make Myself known to them.

For the ancient Semites the name was the key to the secret personality and power of its possessor.   Yahweh had not revealed His intimate name to the patriarchs, not even to Abraham the ‘father of all believers’; and now the great Moses, with whom God could talk ‘face to face’ is only allowed to know that name in order to reveal it to the prospective People of God.  God, therefore, wishes to be known, but it is only in a community of believers that He makes Himself more intimately and truly known.  Moreover, He desired not only to be known but also to be loved by His People, and to that end He gave them His statutes and ordinances, for that rude people needed the discipline of His commandments in order that they might learn how to love their God aright.  And such was the Lord’s desire to be loved aright by His People that He willed to dwell among them, surrounded by those entirely dedicated to His ministry (Exodus 29: 43-4):

At the entrance of the Tent of Meeting I will meet the People of Israel and it will be made sacred by My glory; I also consecrate Aaron and his sons to be My priests, I will dwell in the midst of the Israelites and will be their God.

Self-revelation, covenant relationship, the community of the People of God knowing and loving God in their midst, all that is something more like God’s idea of being a God.

This covenant of Mount Sinai was renewed or further promulgated after the weary years of wandering in the desert as the people of Israel were about to cross the Jordan and take on the conquest of Canaan, but as you know Israel did not prove faithful to her promises: idolatry, ‘man’s inhumanity to man’, lust for the things and pleasures of this world, and religious insincerity, brought upon God’s People the terrible tragedies of the Assyrian and Babylonian exiles.  When all was dark and seemed hopeless, we hear once again:

I will make a new covenant with the House of Israel and the House of Juda … I will place My law within them, and write it upon their hearts I will be their God and they shall be My people.  (Jeremiah 31:31, 33)

Thus spoke the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel (cf. 36:28; 37: 23, 27), but had not Yahweh been God of Israel for some 700 years now?  Why then does He speak yet again about being their God; what, what, is His idea of being God?  

That was most eloquently expressed, perhaps, by the prophet Jeremiah who (24: 4, 7) proclaimed:

Thus says Yahweh: ‘I will regard with favour the exiles of Juda … I will give them a heart to know Me, for I am Yahweh; and they shall be My people and I will be their God, for they shall return to Me with all their heart.

God’s Self-revelation, covenanted relationship, community (People of God) and indwelling – not only of the community but somehow of individuals also; such is the ‘set-up’ necessary for God’s idea of what it is to be God for someone.

That, in very broad outline, is the substance of those texts containing that curious expression, AND I WILL BE YOUR (THEIR) GOD, which I was led to investigate by those words of the Risen Lord Jesus to Mary Magdalen, words that she was to repeat to the disheartened disciples (John 20:17):

            I am going, ascending, to My Father and your Father, to My God and your God.

I could understand, or at least appreciate somewhat, the encouragement that might be found by the disciples from the words ‘to My Father and your Father’, that was something new in Jewish religious thought and the sin of the Tower of Babel was atoned for --- men were again one, in Christ, as sons of the one Father.  But what was special about the words, ‘My God and your God’? 

Understood in the light of Israel’s Old Testament history and the Lord’s frequently reiterated declaration, ‘I will be their God’, Our Risen Lord’s message to His disciples is seen to be overflowing with consolation for them.  For in saying, ‘I am ascending to My God and your God’, Jesus announced the fulfilment of the 1800 years-old aspiration of God, so to speak, and of the People of God.  For the divine message is no longer that Yahweh will be their God, but that He IS THE GOD of those who belong to Christ:

            I am ascending to My God and to your God.

Dear People of God, Jesus has made all things new … a new Revelation such as only the very Son of God could give; a new and eternal Covenant in the Blood of Christ; a new Community in the Body of Christ; a new indwelling of the Spirit of Christ, whereby living members of the Body and children of Mother Church are empowered to live before, and work for, the glory of God their Father in all confidence and humility, expecting not worldly success but hoping and praying for what only the wisdom, the beauty, and the goodness of God can possibly envisage and most surely bring about.  A new and final era is now being entered upon, being set in motion for irreversible execution and fulfilment, by the Gift, today’s Gift of God’s HOLY SPIRIT bond and fruit of Divine Love between Father and Son in God’s most Holy Trinity.

A truly fitting and inspiring seal for all our Easter joys and hopes;  Deo gratias, Alleluia!

          

           

           

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

Ascension of Our Lord 2017

ASCENSION OF OUR LORD                

 Acts 1:1-11; Ephesians 1:17-23; Matthew 28:16-2

All power in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.  Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.  And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.


All power and authority has been given to Jesus; but He is going away, He is not going to use it Personally in the sight of the world.  The glorious work of making disciples of all nations is to be accomplished by His disciples, His glory is to be theirs, that of His Church, not His own so far as the world will be able to judge.

This is in accordance with a consistent practice of Jesus:  after having taken our sins upon Himself, He gives us His Own Spirit to help us confirm and extend His conquest of and dominion over sin; He makes us adopted children of the Father Who sent Him; yes, He consistently seeks to glorify us and, apparently, let Himself disappear somewhat into the background:

On that day you will ask in My name, and I do not tell you that I will ask the Father for you.  For the Father himself loves you, because you have loved Me and have come to believe that I came from God.

He does seem to be living-out the words He spoke to His Father (John 17:10):

          All Mine are Yours and Yours are Mine and I am glorified in them.  

Indeed, Jesus even went so far on one occasion to speak of the Spirit and of the Father with respect to us, omitting Himself altogether (Matthew 10:19-20):

When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say. You will be given at that moment what you are to say.  For it will not be you who speak but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.

However, ironically enough, His Personal humility and love for us is the reason why the world hated Jesus and, indeed, still hates Him and His; it is not because of Jesus Himself -- His human personality and character are universally admired by unbiased students of His life --  no, the world’s great trouble with Jesus, so to speak,  is that He loves us too much: having Himself shared in our humanity, He wills to share His divinity with us, to make us divine in Himself, that we might thus know and experience something of the transcendental, all-embracing and totally self-giving, love which is Divine LIFE.

Having made mankind in His own likeness, that is, having endowed him with spiritual freedom, God wills – and therefore the Father sent His Son among us – to free us from that which would destroy our likeness with Himself, namely sin.   He sent His Son, that He might offer us a choice, that He might help and enable us to use our spiritual freedom to reject the Devil’s ‘toffy-apple of sin’ and deliberately choose to acknowledge the goodness, and give thanks for the great beauty, of our original creation.  And then, more wondrously still, to embrace whole-heartedly the eternal promise and sublime fulfilment of our being which is in Jesus, perfect Man and perfect God, Who, having innocently shared our humanity to the full even to tasting the deepest dregs of its suffering-for-sin, nevertheless, still willed to draw us to Himself as members of His Body able to share in His divine glory and, by His Spirit, become adopted and true children of the heavenly Father.

Now, the gracious and glorious climax of this drama takes place in the Ascension of Our Blessed Lord today … Alleluia!  Deo Gratias!! Thanks be to God!!!

The supreme question now, as we celebrate His Ascension, is of course, what sort of relationship do we have – you and I personally -- with Jesus?    Are we able to trust Him totally with our future, are we willing to love Him in and above our present experience of life on earth -- so visibly beautiful for all and so satisfying for many -- amidst men and women of all sorts searching for, and some already proclaiming themselves to have found their own happiness and well-being?

Here, Saint Paul’s prayer in our second reading is so beautifully appropriate:

May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you a (S)spirit of wisdom and revelation resulting in knowledge of Him … that you may know what is the hope that belongs to His call, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power for us who believe in accordance with the exercise of His great might which He worked in Christ.

Dear People of God, there Paul is telling us that the Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus is the model and power-centre for our own rising with Him to the Father Who originally called us.    How,  though, is that power to be activated in our lives for us?

We cannot, like Magdalen -- clinging to the Jesus of her earthly memories -- be ever seeking and asking of Him earthly blessings and comfort in our passage through life; we have now to learn, with her, how to love Jesus aright as our Ascended Lord, for did not Jesus say to her:

Stop holding on to Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to My brothers and tell them, ‘I am going to My Father and your Father, to My God and your God.’” (John 20:17)

The key to activating the power of Jesus’ ascension in our own lives is, dear People of God, perfectly simple -- as unquestioning Mary Magdalen found –  namely obedience to Jesus the Risen Lord, and to His Spirit in Mother Church and in our Catholic and Christian conscience!! And that requirement of obedience to Jesus is the ultimate reason for the world’s hatred of Him: for despite the fact of His sovereign love for us, and the eternal salvation He offers us, it all -- of its very nature -- involves and demands our obedience; and human pride is at the root of all our sinfulness and weakness.

Behold I am sending the promise of My Father upon you, stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.   (Luke 24:49)

Let us therefore trust not in ourselves, nor allow ourselves to be satisfied by joys of this world or any spiritual self satisfaction; for the work of our salvation is ever on-going and it calls on us who try to attend, observe, and live-out-to-the-full Mother Church’s Liturgy, to accede to the words of Our Lord and pray most sincerely for the proximate coming of God’s Gift of His Most Holy Spirit, that He might be poured out in much-needed fulness upon Mother Church to invest her with heavenly power in her struggles for the Truth of Jesus against the darkness threatening the world.  Let us also invoke the Holy Spirit of Jesus into our own hearts, to help each of us learn to better say ‘no’ to ourselves and to all sin; and – in the measure of His unstinting goodness and in accordance with His own good and immeasurable time -- to guide us, lead us, form us for closeness, yes, even intimacy, with Jesus, our own Flesh-and-Blood Lord and Saviour, and in Him, for love of the heavenly Father.

6th. Sunday of Easter (A)

 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)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, notice that Philip worked miracles – 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:

Prayed 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, blessings though they be, to ‘get things going’, to confirm and consolidate in times of need, but the GIFT OF THE SPIRIT OF JESUS!!

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

            Beloved, sanctify Christ in your hearts!

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

Oh, Lord Jesus, come, rule me: in the longings of my heart and all the searchings and aspirations of my mind, come Lord Jesus, RULE IN ME!!

For the 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 most 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.

 Oh, you so privileged Catholic and Christian People of God! 

 

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

You know Him because He, the Holy Spirit, remains -- always and forever – among you and for you In Mother Church, and will be in you personally, who continue faithful-and-true to Him Who first called you --  the Father Who now gives His Gift of the Spirit -- and to Him Who died and rose from the dead for you, and at Whose request the Father now gives the Spirit of His Son!

Peter, in our second reading, was so confidently urging us to sanctify Christ in our hearts that he was in no way embarrassed to allow himself to be carried further and declare that our sufferings as Christians for what is good, are themselves a truly, indeed supremely, 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.  

Notice here the wondrous harmony between Saint Peter in our second reading today and some words of Saint Paul taken from His doctrinal letter to the Romans and to the nations, where he writes:

As to His death, He (Christ) died to sin once and for all; as to His life, He lives for God.  (Romans 6:10)

Let me put the words of Peter and Paul side by side and bit by bit for you:

Christ suffered for sins once/ As to His death, He died to sin once.

The Righteous for the unrighteous/He (the Righteous One) died to sin once, and for all (the unrighteous).

That He might lead you to God/He (now) lives; consequently, you too must think of yourselves as dead to sin and living for God in Christ Jesus. 

There is yet one more essential doctrinal concordance between Peter and Paul in their teaching about Christ and the salvation He offers us – something absolute necessary for a right understanding of the world’s and our society’s current turmoil and trials -- and it concerns sin, its deadliness and universality:

HE SUFFERED FOR SINS ONCE; HE DIED TO SIN ONCE, AND FOR ALL; THAT HE MIGHT LEAD YOU AS DEAD TO SIN AND LIVING FOR GOD.

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; those 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 that sin, for which and from which He came to offer us salvation, cannot be overcome in any way at all 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!

However, without Christianity, life is not truly acceptable for those who have once known the Faith, and so they must continually dress up in different ways selections and adaptations of that way of life they formerly recognized, lived by, and perhaps appreciated and provisionally loved.   The ‘world’ cannot receive the Spirit of Jesus because it does not recognize the reality of that sin which rules -- even by acclaim! -- 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 criminality in order to keep acceptable order in society, to win human approbation, and to provide comforting self-justification; it does not want to recognize and reject the real sin present, for some so secretly and for others so satisfyingly, in human, and above all their own -- hearts!!

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: 19-20)

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 for us His present-day disciples, 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, as it were, calmly set sail under such an aegis, allowing ourselves to be guided by the breathing of His Spirit filling the sails of all our hopes and aspirations and, looking to neither right nor left, trust totally in Him our Brother Who died and rose again for us, and in Him Who originally called us and still invites us to find eternal joy and peace in our true home with Him Who is our only, and eternally loving, Father.