Ascension of Our Lord 2020

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 see.

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. (John 16:27)

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:

 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. (Matthew 10:19-20)

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 taken upon Himself the burden of  our humanity, He now 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 to free us from that which could alone destroy our likeness to Himself, namely sin.   He therefore sent His Son-made-flesh, that He might offer us a choice, that He might re-enable us to use our spiritual freedom to reject the Devil’s ‘toffy-apple of sin’ and lovingly choose to acknowledge the goodness, and give thanks for the great beauty, of our original creation.

But then, even more wondrously still, He wants to enable us to deliberately and whole-heartedly embrace the eternal promise and sublime fulfilment of our being which is in Jesus -- perfect Man and perfect God -- Who, having most innocently shared our humanity to the full, even, indeed, to tasting the deepest dregs of its suffering-for-sin, nevertheless, still willed to draw us back to Himself, as members of His Body able  -- by the power of His Spirit -- to share in His divine glory and  become adopted and true children of the heavenly Father.

Now, the gracious and glorious climax of this divine drama takes place in the Ascension of Our Blessed Lord … Alleluia!   And the supreme question now, as we prepare to celebrate His Ascension, is of course, what sort of relationship can we– you and I personally -- have with the Risen and Ascending Jesus?

First of all, notice that the Risen Jesus is glorious in the Spirit, and today He ascends to His Father in the power of the same Spirit Whom He, Jesus, bestows, as He promised, upon us for our salvation!

Secondly, notice the  fact that ‘Jesus is risen’ means that sin -- through which came death upon mankind -- could not hold Jesus dead; it means that Jesus – by rising -- destroyed sin’s power over humankind, and over the humanity of those who will believe in Him, and in the-God-Who-raised-Him.  Such a living relationship with Jesus now means that sin has no power over us who believe, and that we, authentic disciples of Jesus, need not give in to, cannot willingly yield ourselves to, sin again.

Finally, of course, it means that Jesus is ascending longingly to His Father in heaven, and that we who want to be His true disciples can most delightedly embrace those Easter words of St. Paul:

If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.  Think of what is above, not of what is on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.   When Christ your life appears, then you too will appear with him in glory. (Colossians 3:1–4)

Are we able to trust such a Jesus totally with our future, are we willing to love Him in and above our present experience of life on earth -- visibly beautiful indeed, and so satisfying according to men and women of all sorts ostensibly searching for worldly fulfilment, some of whom are already proclaiming themselves to have found in sensual pleasure, personal power and plenty, all the happiness and well-being they need or want?

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, is that holy 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 psychological satisfactions 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)

Yes, dear People of God, the key to activating the power of Jesus’ Ascension in our own lives is 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 is the ultimate reason for the world’s hatred of Him: for despite the fact of Jesus’ sovereign love for us and the eternal salvation He offers us, it all -- of its very nature -- involves our obedience; and human, ultimately devilish, pride is at the root of all our spiritual weakness, waywardness, and sinfulness.

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 subsequently trust not in ourselves, for the work of salvation is ever on-going and it calls on us who attend, try to participate in and live-out-to-the-full, Mother Church’s Liturgy, to pray most sincerely for the coming of God’s Gift of His Most Holy Spirit on Mother Church anew that she might receive in yet greater fulness heavenly wisdom and power for the service of Jesus’ Light and Truth against the darkness and deceit 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 time -- to guide us, lead us, form us for closeness, yes, even intimacy, with Jesus our own Flesh-and-Blood Lord and Saviour, and for love of the heavenly Father Who sent Jesus to us and calls us to Him in the loving bond of His most Holy Spirit.

(2020)

6th Sunday of Easter Year A 2020

6^th. Sunday of Easter (A)
(Acts 8:5-8, 14-17; 1^st. Peter 3:15-18; John 14:15-21)

In our Gospel reading we heard Jesus make this promise to His disciples:

I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever -- the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him, but you know Him for He dwells with you and will be in you.

"You know Him for He dwells with you":  as Divine Providence, the Holy Spirit had thus far guided the apostles individually to the Person of Jesus and formed them as a body of disciples living with and serving Him as Lord, and publicly witnessing to Him as Messiah.

However, that same Spirit of Truth, Jesus went on to say:

            Will be in you.

For Jesus promised that, having ascended to heaven, He would ask the Father to send another ‘Helper’ for the disciples Who -- as God’s Gift -- will be with them collectively as Church,  and also in them individually, forming them as loving disciples of, self-sacrificing witnesses to, Jesus for the glory of the Father; and thus the Spirit of Life and Love will ‘Help’ Mother Church  bear ‘fruit that will last’: adopted children of God in the likeness of Jesus, the Beloved and only-begotten Son of the Father:

Because I live, you will live also.

People of God, let us learn from the Apostles just how important is the Gift of the Holy Spirit Whom Jesus promises, the Spirit, the Helper, we are now expecting with devout anticipation:

When the apostles who were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them, who, when they had come down, prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit.    For as yet He had fallen upon none 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.  

As living members of Mother Church and the Body of Christ we are in the constant process of being guided and formed by the Holy Spirit living with us all and in each one of us.  And yet, every day, we are being shown that our society and indeed our world, for which we are meant to be both sanctifying salt and guiding light, are becoming alienated, are alienating themselves, ever more deeply from God; and indeed, to such an extent that we are inevitably led to question the witness that we ourselves are giving to Jesus, and to look and pray ever more deeply and humbly for a renewed ‘gifting’ of the Spirit of Truth this Pentecost, in order that He, the Helper as Jesus called Him, might indeed help us prosecute more effectively the work for which we have been chosen: the work of witnessing to the beauty and proclaiming the truth of Jesus to all mankind.  Not only to continue the work He Himself initiated during His life among men, but indeed, do even greater works by spreading the Gospel with its offer of salvation to the whole of mankind as He Himself said:

Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to My Father.

In the beginning, after man had sinned, we read that:

The Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide (strive, contend) with man forever, for he is indeed flesh.” (Genesis 6:3)

Weak, recalcitrant, flesh, indeed, because mankind became the plaything of the spirit of deceit (1 Kings 22:19-23):

Then Micah (the prophet) said, "Therefore hear the word of the LORD: I saw the LORD sitting on His throne, and all the host of heaven standing by, on His right hand and on His left.   And the LORD said, 'Who will persuade Ahab to go up, that he may fall at Ramoth Gilead?' So, one spoke in this manner, and another spoke in that manner.   Then a spirit came forward and stood before the LORD, and said, 'I will persuade him.'   The LORD said to him, 'In what way?' So, he said, 'I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.' And the LORD said, 'You shall persuade him, and also prevail. Go out and do so.'    Therefore look (Ahab, rebellious king of Judah!) the LORD has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these prophets of yours, and the LORD has declared disaster against you."

Because of the sinfulness of Israel, because of their rejection of God and their service of demons -- epitomized in their king Ahab -- God allowed them to suffer under the very spirits they had chosen to follow.   And surely, People of God, we can see that same thing happening all around us today, where deceitful spirits are manifestly at work leading multitudes astray: harassing, driving, directing them along ways that can never lead to peace or happiness.

As disciples of Him of Whom the prophet foretold (Isaiah 42:2):

He will not cry out nor raise His voice, nor cause His voice to be heard in the street,

we cannot always be condemning the world; nor, as disciples of the same Jesus of whom the prophet went on to say:

            A bruised reed He will not break and smoking flax He will not quench,

can we always be arguing: be it with youngsters who are misguided and largely ignorant, or with older sinners become blasé and nonchalant, having long ago turned their backs on God.

Today we are in a situation very much like that in which the first Christians found themselves in the pagan society of the Roman Empire and to whom Peter wrote in his first letter, saying:

Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts.  Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope which is in you, but do it with courtesy and respect.

That is, guard against the poisonous atmosphere of much of today's popular thinking, preaching, boasting and practice, lest it corrode the strength and beauty of your relationship with Jesus. We should not, however, in mistaken zeal, attempt to push our faith onto others; neither, as I have already said, can we be constantly condemning or complaining; rather, as Peter advises, let us be supremely positive:

LET US SANCTIFY CHRIST AS LORD IN OUR HEARTS and lives.

Pentecost is God’s offer to come anew among us as Church and into us personally as disciples; we should therefore learn from such a Gift, such a Helper, to entrust, commit, ourselves more confidently to His abiding presence with Mother Church, more gratefully to His isHworking-presence in ourselves, and with more appreciation for His gracious presence in-and-among our fellow Catholics and Christians;

Too often we can so easily adopt worldly ways -- gaining men’s praise or a measure of self-satisfaction -- and thereby close ourselves somewhat to the Spirit of Truth, with the result that He cannot work effectively either in us or through us:

The Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide (strive, contend) with man forever, for he is indeed flesh.”

We can so easily live as children of the world: yielding to vanity, refusing to accept unpleasant truths, speaking wild words from emotional upset, uttering calculated lies to avoid what we fear, using words as weapons for aggression rather than as channels of truth for mutual understanding; and in doing such things we allow our enemy, the spirit of deceit -- of whom the prophet Malachi spoke -- to attempt to shackle the work of the Spirit within us.

But, dear People of God, we must never forget that a recognized enemy is no deadly threat for those who sincerely seek God, for by embracing the promise of Jesus’ Spirit coming to us anew at Pentecost we can indeed turn the tables on the deceiver, we can mock him, indeed, put him to scorn, for Jesus' promise to His disciples still holds for you and me, dear fellow Catholics and Christians, in our world today.

We are called and enabled by the Spirit of Jesus to continue Jesus’ work; indeed, as Jesus Himself said, we are called to do even greater works for Him.  Let us therefore prepare, pray, for the coming anew of His Spirit among and within us by opening ourselves up in greater love to the beauty and truth so richly available to us: in the doctrinal and spiritual teaching of Mother Church, in our own ever-deeper prayerful communion with Jesus, and in all sorts of cooperative relationships with our brothers and sisters working in and for society and the world of today.  In that way may we be made truly ready and prepared to:

Give a defence to everyone who asks a reason for the hope that is in (us);

that stupendous hope which is summed up in those very few words of Jesus:

I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

,

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5th Sunday of Eastertide Year A 2020

             Fifth Sunday of Eastertide (A)

(Acts of the Apostles 6:1-7; 1st. Letter of St. Peter 2:4-9; Gospel of St. John 14:1-12)

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With the Gospel passage we have just heard we are introduced into what might be called the ‘Holy of holies of the New Testament’.  These intimate words after the Last Supper which Jesus had so ‘eagerly desired to eat with His disciples’ contain what is, in effect, the last manifestation of His deeply sympathetic understanding of and Personal concern for those whom the Father had specially given to Him, and whom He had long cherished and come to love so very dearly, before Himself being given up to death – a death He not only freely accepted but also most lovingly embraced, ‘entering willingly into His Passion’, as the second Eucharistic Prayer puts it. 

Jesus had already gathered the Apostles round Him for their Paschal meal in the course of which He told them – to His great distress and theirs – that one of them would betray Him; whereupon they were left anxiously wondering who it could be since Jesus did not publicly name Judas Iscariot.  The atmosphere in the room was depressed, even somewhat tense, but Judas then went out -- apparently on a mission confided to him, but in fact into the night and under the powers of darkness -- whereupon the general sense of despondency among the Apostles was lifted and they were free again to respond to Jesus’ words of exultation:

          Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him. (John 13:31)

This stark transition from recent depression and foreboding to present joy and expectation affected Peter most of all for, when Jesus went on to say:  

My children, I will be with you only a little while longer. You will look for me, and as I told the Jews, ‘Where I go you cannot come’,

He, Peter, could not accept the thought of any such limitation to his zeal for and attachment to Jesus:

          Master, why can’t I follow You?  I will lay down my life for You!

Whereupon Jesus thought it necessary to warn him that, despite his present, and most sincere, feelings, he would soon deny Him three times.

However, Jesus -- having just intoned ‘Gloria’ to God in the highest -- did not want His private words to Peter to further dismay His disciples, and so He hastened to encourage and confirm them in their Gospel faith by advising them how to attain something of that peace and joy which awaited them in heaven, however much threatening clouds here on earth might gather around them and against Himself at this decisive moment:   

Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in Me.  In My Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? 

He says the same to His Catholic people today, ‘Do not let your hearts be troubled!’  Difficulties will inevitably arise, for the devil is most manifestly hard at work in this sinful world around you, and indeed, he is at work, perhaps most seriously of all in Mother Church, provoking scandals even among those specially consecrated to the glory of God’s Name.

So, dear People of God, although the world is our dwelling-place it is most certainly no home for us today; and although Mother Church -- infallible in her teaching and unique in her plenitude of heavenly grace – needs the purifying support of your prayers and witness to the beauty of the Gospel of Jesus which she alone proclaims in its necessary integrity; and although, even in your very own loving hearts and faithful minds, the devil is ever trying to tempt and disturb you,  Jesus’ words of true wisdom offer you both human comfort and heavenly strength:

Do not let your hearts be troubled! Have faith in God -- He is Lord and Master of all -- have faith also in Me, for I have promised to be with you in My Church until the end of time.

People of God, it is a sign of true love for Jesus  -- I say ‘true love’, because it is a virtue, a work of self-committal  and self-sacrifice for God, which is totally unappreciable to unbelievers -- when we refuse to allow our hearts to be weighed down, our minds wearied and worried, at the devil’s instigation, by the cares of this world. 

Jesus continued speaking to His disciples, opening His Sacred Heart to them and to us more and more, when He added:

If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and take you to Myself, so that where I am you also may be. 

Here Jesus tells all who -- together with the Apostles -- long for that supreme blessedness of ‘being with Him’, that it cannot be achieved by our own efforts; ultimately, we can only be truly and fully ‘one with Him’ by His coming to us and our allowing Him to take charge of our lives. 

          I will come back again and take you to Myself.

Not that Jesus will do everything, of course, because He came down among us that we might rise to newness of life in Him and learn to work with Him and by His Spirit for the Father’s glory and mankind’s salvation; and so, He immediately calls on the Apostles and on us to prepare ourselves:

           Where I am going you know the way.

The way, that is, already proclaimed by the Good News of the Gospel and the witness of the Apostles, the way along which all who believe in Jesus must walk towards the Father’s heavenly home.  Let us therefore prepare ourselves to start immediately with both confidence and humility, sure in the knowledge that we will ultimately reach our destination if we walk steadfastly on in company with Jesus.  That is why Jesus will return: to take us with Himself along the Way:

I will come back again and take you to Myself.  I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

At that moment, in our Gospel account, Philip came up with a question that no doubt astonished his fellow Apostles -- how could Philip have asked such a question at such a time and in their name! -- and Jesus Himself:

          Master, show us the Father and that will be enough for us!

This both astonished Jesus and it hurt Him!

Have I been with you for so long a time, and you still do not know Me, Philip?  

That question, I say, hurt Jesus because it showed that Philip was not fully content to be with Jesus; it showed that he did not, as yet, really love Jesus enough, and that was because he did not, as Jesus said, truly know Him.  Whatever Philip wanted, it showed that Jesus was not, as yet, enough for him.  It would seem that he wanted the worldly certainty of sight rather than the obscurity of divine faith  and that meant that Philip was not yet content to be with Jesus in faith; he wanted what he thought was more, what was better: to see the Father with his own eyes.   How foolish!!  Would the Father appear other, better, than Jesus appeared?

It was clear-- embarrassingly clear even to his fellow Apostles and, of course, painfully clear for Jesus – that He, Jesus, was not yet, Philip’s all; there was so much of Philip not yet given to Jesus, so much of Philip still wanting for Philip!

In this respect there is a Franciscan tradition of special interest:

St. Francis is reported (Ivan Gobry) to have said, ‘The Order and the life of Friars Minor are like a little flock that the Son of God requested of His heavenly Father saying, “Father, I would like You to form and give Me a new and humble people, different from all those that have gone before … a people that will be content to possess Me alone.”’

Let us learn even from this, dear People of God: Jesus knows our ingratitude, our selfishness, and yet He will lead us, if we are of good-will, ever further on as He eventually led Philip to die for love of Him and the Gospel.

And how many of us -- as Catholic believers -- like Philip want to see something, have something for themselves, other than the ordinariness of life with and for Jesus, when we should be thinking how we can give best witness to our faith and best glory to God for His  great mercy and goodness to us, having given us the privilege and joy of being a Catholic Christian in today’s world where people are led wildly astray by their passions and ambitions, their fears and anxieties, their greed and selfishness.  That is, we all should be thinking and praying how we can best give thanks for the privilege of being a Catholic called to lead  a life of  steadfast faith and calm joy in and with Jesus, and give thereby a sure sign both of our confident hope in His promise of heaven to come, and of our desire to share ever more in His Spirit of love for His Father and for all men and women of good will.

Dear People of God,  Catholic companions and Christian friends in Jesus, that is our vocation in these terrible times of trial, overweening pride, and 'free range' search for love and pleasure: to give heartfelt thanks to God for offering us the great privilege of living a life of humble obedience and loving commitment to Jesus Christ, His Son and our Saviour and -- in the Spirit of Them both -- a life also of humble service and patient  companionship with and for all our fellows.