The Ascension of Our Lord Year C 2022

 

The Ascension of Our Lord (C)

(Acts of the Apostles 1:1-11; Ephesians 1:17-23; Luke 24:46-53)

 

 

In the Gospel reading, Our Lord, appearing to the eleven gathered together in Jerusalem, summarized His own life’s mission and work with these few words:

Thus, it is written that the Messiah would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day.

And shortly before that meeting in Jerusalem, He had appeared to two disciples walking to Emmaus and – although a that moment unbeknown to them -- joining in their conversation had said:

Oh, how foolish you are! How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke!    Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and enter into His glory?  (Luke 24:25-26)

These two statements give us, without any doubt, the essential elements of Jesus’ mission and work: to suffer and to rise from the dead to glory.  Making mention neither of His miracles nor of His preaching, He speaks exclusively of His suffering and death on the Cross followed by His rising on the third day.

Why is this so?  Because His mission, and the work it necessarily involved, was to be accepted, embraced, and carried out, for love … love of His Father and love for us; and, as He Himself was to say (John 15:13):

No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.  

And this He made manifest to all when, immediately before His Passion and Death He first of all prayed to His Father saying:

I glorified You on earth by accomplishing the work that You gave Me to do.     Now glorify Me, Father, with You, with the glory that I had with You before the world began.  (John 17: 4-5)

Jesus is now in glory at the right hand of His Father, with the marks of suffering on His Body because they are signs of His love, memorials in His human flesh of how divine life and love triumphed over sin and death.

With God, with Jesus, to live means to love, for God is Love; and all who aspire to eternal life most therefore learn how to live here on earth as true disciples of Jesus: loving God with all one’s heart, and one’s neighbour as one’s self, by the inspiration and in the power of His most Holy Spirit.  And that is how, St. Paul showed himself to be a truly sublime disciple of Christ when he expressed his own spiritual aspirations and aims in this passage from his letter to the Philippians:

I count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith;  that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death,  if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3:8-11)

Constant preaching; unceasing organizational care and personal solicitude for those he was trying to serve and save for Jesus; deep learning and epistolary ability; miracles, personal mystical gifts ….  all these were Paul’s duties and obligations, his ever-present and ever-pressing needs; and yet, his one personal aim in life, his deepest desire, was to be:

Conformed to His (Jesus’) death; if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

As Doctor of the Nations he would encourage his beloved Philippians to walk in this same way:

For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake. (Philippians 1:29)

Likewise, his doctrinal letter to the Romans (8:16-17) -- where he sets out his divinely authorized proclamation of the Christian Gospel -- also emphasizes the same teaching:

The Spirit Himself bears testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.

When speaking to the Eleven in Jerusalem after His Resurrection, Jesus, had -- before He was taken up into heaven -- promised them the special Gift of the Holy Spirit Who would enable them to carry out the commission He was about to give them:

Thus, it is written that the Messiah would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance and remission of sins would be preached in His name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.  Stay in the city until you are clothed with Power from on high.

Let us, therefore, who also aspire to become true disciples of Jesus, despite constant awareness and repeated evidence of our weakness and self-love, learn from St. Paul, and indeed all the Apostles, how to appreciate, respond to, and appropriate, the glorious mystery of Our Blessed Lord’s Ascension now being joyfully preached to all nations in and through Mother Church.

First, and most fundamental of all we must learn to make our own the Christian ethos of joy as we respond to the Good News of Jesus:

They did Him homage and then returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the Temple praising God.

For us, that means we should be ever joyful in Jesus (our Temple) as we continually praise God … joyful in Jesus, praising God.

St. Paul, as the apostle specially chosen for us former Gentiles, has more detailed help to offer us in today’s second reading:

May the eyes of (your) hearts be enlightened, that you may know what is the hope that belongs to His call; what are the riches of glory in His inheritance among the holy ones; and what is the surpassing greatness of His power for us who believe, in accord with the exercise of His great might, which He worked in Christ, raising Him from the dead and seating Him at His right hand in the heavens.

That is how Paul himself gradually learned how to die to himself in order to grow in the love and service of his Lord and Master; let us therefore, try to follow in his steps:

‘Know what is the hope that belongs to His call’ … each of you has been called, drawn, to Jesus by the Father.  Think what that means … why did the Father call you? why does He still draw you? … surely because He loves you; what did He call you for? what has He in mind for you? … surely something wonderfully fulfilling and good! 

St. Paul thought about ‘the hope belonging to his own call’ and he tells us (Romans 5:2) that he himself:

            Rejoiced in hope of (seeing and sharing in) the glory of God!

Advising us to know ‘What are the riches of glory in His inheritance among the saints’… Paul, subsequently prayed on our behalf that we might:  

Be strengthened with might through the (Holy) Spirit in the inner man!

Give thanks to the Father Who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the                     saints in light.    (Ephesians 3:16; Colossians 1:12)

And finally, urging us to ‘Know What is the surpassing greatness of His power for us who believe’ … St. Paul was led him to write these astounding words (2:4-7):

God, Who is rich in mercy, because of the great love He had for us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, brought us to life with Christ, raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavens; that, in the ages to come He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, St. Paul practiced what he still preaches to us; his persevering prayer and constant meditation on the message and ministry of Christ has won Mother Church wonderful letters of instruction and guidance to help all of us to know, love, and serve Jesus with all our heart.  What he, Paul, did under the special apostolic Gift of the Holy Spirit from Jesus, we too are able, and are encouraged, to imitate, thanks to Jesus’ gift of His Eucharist Sacrifice and Presence to all who love and obey His Church as their own spiritual Mother.

Jesus’ Ascension into heaven inaugurated a paean of praise, thanksgiving, and joy, first kindled, as you heard, among the Apostles in Jerusalem, and still nurtured by faithful souls all over the world, ever ascending with the saints and resounding among the blessed in heaven.  Rejoice, therefore, dear People of God in Jesus the Lord of eternal glory; exult in all His mighty works, and meditate on His saving words, for He is your Lord, your Saviour, and your Brother; and He is preparing a place for you in your Father’s house!

                                                                     

 

           

 

 

 

6th Sunday of Easter Year C 2022

 

6^th. Sunday of Easter (C)

(Acts 15:1-2, 22-29; Rev. 21:10-14, 22-23; John 14:23-29)

 

 

Today, dear People of God, let us give careful attention to those words of Our Lord:

Whoever loves Me will keep My word;

for they are a ‘buckler and shield’ against difficulties easily arising from alienating aspects of modern society which may undermine the confidence and commitment of some Catholics and Christians.

For example, much public good is done today; but, not as of old, by individuals and volunteers of good-will promoting purposes of healing both spiritual and physical, while seeking financial help from benefactors great and small.  Today’s good works which are part of what has been called by a modern writer, the progressives ‘imposition of improvements’ and cancellation of Christianity:

are centred only on physical and mental health, spirituality being cancelled;

are imposed and hedged around with criminal terminology such as ‘hate-crimes’ etc.;

are backed by continuous propaganda on national TV concerning colour and to a lesser extent, gender;

are, often, seized upon by over-excited student bodies for slogans such as ‘racist’, ‘divisive’, ‘slavers’; where student-pride leads them to want to change history to suit their own present-day immaturity.

Obviously, being tarred by their obligatory nature, such improvements are questionable as regards their original purpose as well as their ultimate intention.

            Whoever loves Me will keep My word.

Jesus’ words of guidance are also helpful for well-intentioned believers puzzled by individuals known to them who do not practice any religion and say that it is not necessary for people to go to Church in order to live a good life.  Such a puzzle left unanswered at the back of one’s mind and being repeatedly encountered in an ever-more secular society, can generate vague feelings of insecurity, sow tiny seeds of anxiety and doubt, in remote corners of the hearts and minds of some believers.  And should they, subsequently, encounter others positively antagonistic towards religion and who scornfully refer to the faithful as ‘church-goers’ ‘hypocrites’ and other like terms of disdain or even contempt, then those believers can find themselves robbed in some measure of the peace, joy, and confidence which should normally accompany their faith.

            Whoever loves Me will keep My word.

 Dear People of God, those words of Jesus are a most sure buckler and shield when accepted and understood in the way innocent children embrace what their parents have told them, and hold on to that teaching despite the challenges and mockery of ‘smart alecs’ in the school ground, or ‘big mouths’ in the university campus.  As disciples of Jesus we are called to lovingly centre our lives on Him, to keep Him ever in mind, recall and act on His words with calm confidence at all times … not to bother ourselves with what others around think, remembering those other words of Jesus, ‘they hated Me, they will hate you’, ‘you are not of this world just as I am not of this world’.

The Catholic, Christian life is both peaceful and sure where love of Jesus is strong and true, and where trust in the Spirit He has given us is child-like, leading believers, first of all, to recognize and embrace Jesus’ will for them: fruit, which He the true vine, wants them as His branches, living by the sap of His Spirit, to produce for the Father, and to thereby allow the Spirit, to form those disciples ever more truly in Jesus’ likeness and enable them to share ever more fully in Jesus’ own joy and fulfilment.

Nevertheless, on the human level faithful disciples can still at times wonder, how irreligious people, and indeed, sometimes, openly evil people, can appear to be both charming and attractive.

For the answer to this, we must continue to ponder Our Lord's words, for we have much more to learn from Him that may seem strange to us if our patterns of thought have too often been formed by commonly held opinions rather than Christian teaching.

Whoever loves Me will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our dwelling with him. 

Notice that pronoun "My".  Today, people are very familiar with the supreme Christian prayer, taught by Jesus Himself, which goes: "Our Father, who art in heaven ,.. "   Many call that prayer the "Our Father", but that is not accurate enough, it should be called "The Lord's Prayer" because it was a prayer given by Jesus to His disciples, not to anyone and everyone.   God does indeed love all His creation because He created it; and mankind, the culmination of His creation is supremely loved by God: they alone are made in His likeness.  Now, it is just there that we come across the reason why we can, at times, find some non-religious people so puzzlingly attractive: it is because we are still able to see in them aspects of the rich endowment and subtle beauty of God’s crowning creation; and, indeed, the closer we ourselves are drawn to God, the more such people can move us, at times, to appreciate what is, whilst regretting, most sorrowfully, what might have been.

Of those disciples who learn to love and obey His teaching, we are told that Jesus said,

My Father will love them.

Now, the Father loves such disciples because of their love for and belief in His only begotten Son, and thus loving them for Jesus’ sake, He loves them as His own adopted children in Jesus.  The Father also endows such disciples with a new and supernatural beauty because, being living and vital members of Jesus, they therefore share, even here on earth, something of His Resurrection beauty and glory.

Now, there is a world of difference between God's love for creation, between God’s love for mankind as the crown and culmination of His natural creation, and His Fatherly love for His supernatural children, born of the Spirit, in Jesus.  And in order to experience God in this new way, as our heavenly Father, our love for Jesus must become ever and more whole-hearted:

Whoever loves Me will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our dwelling with him. 

My dear Catholic and Christian people, our God is not cheap.  His love is the supreme Gift, treasure, blessing, of any human life; and when the Father and the Son come to us, they bring also with them the Holy Spirit to be our very own Advocate, Counsellor, and Guide:

The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, Whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you everything and will remind you of all that I told you.

With Him, the Spirit of Jesus, present as divine Gift in our soul, guiding, comforting, strengthening, delighting, and inspiring us for Jesus' sake, then, indeed, we can begin to truly experience God’s presence in our heart as the heavenly Father's love, as Jesus' companionship, and as the Spirit's comfort, strength, peace, and joy.

People of God, you are called, destined, to be citizens of God’s heavenly kingdom, therefore, do not worry yourselves, like Lot’s wife, looking back at what the world is doing around you, or sideways at what people are thinking or saying about you.  Leave hold of the world,   

Whoever loves Me will keep My word,

or, as one of our hymns puts it, "Walk, walk, in the light of the Lord" and, indeed, do your very, very, best to walk ever forward, with a firm step, a steadfast heart, and by the Spirit in true Easter joy.    

                        (2022)

 

5th Sunday of Easter Year C 2022

 

 

              Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year (C)

(Acts of the Apostles 14:21-27; Revelation 21:1-5; St. John’s Gospel 13:31-35)

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I, John, saw a new Jerusalem, God’s dwelling with His people as their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes.  The One who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.”

God's work of making all things new began with Jesus, our Lord and Saviour: Son of God, Son of Mary of Nazareth, and therefore, Son of Man:

            Behold, God’s dwelling is with the human race.

The Son shared with His Father and the Holy Spirit in the original creation when God made all things through the Son in the Spirit; that is why -- now that the saving work of making all things new is about to be inaugurated – the Son Incarnate, Jesus of Nazareth, having been crucified and raised from the dead in the power of the Spirit, appeared to His Apostles locked in the Upper Room for fear of the Jews and breathed His Spirit on them.   His breathing upon them was precisely the sign of a new creation being made. Just as God had breathed on His original creation:

The LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. (Genesis 2:7)

So Jesus, appearing in the midst of His disciples and having shown them the wounds in His hands and His side, said to them (John 20:19-22):

Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you."  And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit.”

God is in the process of making all things new, and Jesus, the Risen Lord, shares in His Father’s work by breathing the Holy Spirit upon His Apostles, thereby making them the nucleus of that new creation where sin is to be overthrown by the cleansing and empowering presence of God's most Holy Spirit. 

A new creation needs to be sustained by a new Food, and at the Last Supper Jesus gave new Bread and new Wine to His potential Church, the new Family of God, to which He also gave a new commandment:

My children I will be with you only little while longer.  I give you a new commandment: love one another.  As I have loved you. So you also should love one another.

LIFE and LOVE!  That is what Christianity is all about: being gifted, even here on earth, with an initial, but truly authentic, share in the divine life of love in heaven!!

What are life and love all about in our modern world however?

Governments of all kinds prescribe life-styles for those under their power.   Even … I was actually going to write, ‘even Christian governments’ … but then I thought, are there any Christian governments?   Certainly not in England, America, Europe.  Those governments of what used to call themselves Christian countries now proclaim and impose nothing better than their own up-to-date version of officially approved, politically correct, ‘ethical’ living; smattered here and there with shattered vestiges of what was formerly beautiful Christian practice … speaking, for example, of marriage, where husband and wife can now be two young women, two elderly men; and of family, where non-natural children (non-natural – not of themselves indeed – but for such a union) are bestowed with government blessing upon ‘couples’ chosen for all sorts of supposed abilities and qualities, except that of being able to transmit, give, bestow, life!  Such ethical living is a wayward humanities’ own concoction, not a witness to the saving teaching of Jesus, the Man sent by God for our salvation.

What do the majority of our contemporaries think love is all about?  It is the most bastardized word or concept of all in our modern society, because its origin is sublime and its ‘work’ is meant to be pre-eminently dignifying and fulfilling.  However, ‘love’ in the Hollywood sense of the word, disseminated all over the world in lurid images and sordid language, is used to promote and justify a degrading and destructive mixture of sexual lust and pleasure, pride, violence and vengeance, instead of  beauty and purpose, joy and hope, patience and peace for even the bleakest of human situations.

‘Family’ and ‘love’, two most sublime words when lived in accordance with their original Christian significance and open to their promised spiritual power, become poisonous when used by specious scholars as propaganda or by irreligious modern men and women as words to cover up or excuse what are merely clamorous demands of the flesh (which so quickly turns to corruption) and aspirations that look no further than the grave (proving themselves to be ultimately selfish).

LIFE and LOVE in the Eucharist!  That is what Catholic Christianity is all about.

Our closest bond is, humanly speaking, that of flesh and blood; and God’s new creation is not alien to, at variance with, such a deep-rooted, natural human awareness. That bond, however, is made supernatural and becomes capable of sustaining eternal life and the ultimate love only by our partaking of and sharing in the Body and Blood of Christ!  As Jesus the Risen Christ, our Lord and Saviour offers Himself to us as food for eternal life,  we are thereby made uniquely and supremely one as adopted Children of God, the family of Him Who is pleased to be the one sublime Father of us all.  It is not human family, not even shared sufferings, most certainly not racial superiority or hatreds (ISIS), that can truly and sublimely unite us, but only and exclusively our being one with each other in Jesus -- the supreme, divine, reality in the whole of God's creation -- by the Spirit, for the Father, fulfilling His plan and purpose to make ‘all things new’:

As the living Father sent Me and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me; (John 6:57)

So then, let us do good to all, but especially to those who belong to the family of the faith; (Galatians 6:10); and again (1 Peter 2:17):

Honour everyone.  Love the family of believers.  Fear God. 

 

To further understand this essential aspect of Jesus let us look yet more closely at the Gospel.

Jesus was proud, humanly speaking, to be a Jew and member of God’s Chosen People meant to serve the salvation of all mankind:

The woman said to him, “Sir, I can see that you are a prophet.   Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain; but you people say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.”  Jesus said to her, “Believe Me, woman, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.   You people worship what you do not understand; we worship what we understand, because salvation is from the Jews.  (John 44:19-22)

Again, recall Jesus emphasizing His solidarity, oneness, with another particular group:

While Jesus was still speaking to the crowds, His mother and His brothers appeared outside, (asking) to speak with Him.  But He said in reply to the one who told Him, “Who is My mother? Who are My brothers?”  And stretching out His hand toward His disciples, He said, “Here are My mother and My brothers.  For whoever does the will of My heavenly Father is My brother, and sister, and mother.”  (Matthew 12:46–50)

‘Whoever does the will of My heavenly Father is My real family’, Jesus makes abundantly clear.

Our modern rationalists, political propagandists, and others deeply opposed to religion, love to show and abuse their remembrance of certain Christian teachings and aspirations, by ever reasserting modern versions or adaptations of the revolutionary trinity, Liberty, Fraternity and Equality; most beautiful Christian concepts indeed, but idealized beyond truthfulness and viability as ways of human progress by excluding the very, very, human reality of sin which requires the Christian awareness and practice of repentance and -- most objectionably for such revolutionaries -- the practice of Christian humility before God and man.

Dear People of God, our liturgical Sacrifice of the Eucharist and our personal sacramental reception of, and commitment to, the Fruit of that sacrifice, is the supreme seal of mankind’s saving oneness with Jesus and growth in filial appreciation of the Father’s eternal love for His adopted children, and thus embraces our human diversity in a sacred bond of mutual reverence and shared rejoicing. 

Treasure your Mass, dear People of God, and pray with confidence for Mother Church.

(2022)