Ascension of Our Lord Year B, 2024

 

(Acts 1:1-11; Eph. 1:17-23; Mark 16:15-20)

In our second reading Paul said that, having heard of the Ephesians’ faith in the Lord Jesus and love for the saints, he had not stopped giving thanks for them and was constantly asking God to bless them with the Gift of the Holy Spirit so that:

The eyes of (your) hearts may be enlightened, that you may know what is the hope that belongs to His call,

Today’s feast makes clear what St. Paul had in mind, for surely the Apostles’ very posture as they watched their Lord’s ascension showed most manifestly the hope that fill3ed their hearts and minds:

They were looking intently at the sky as He was going, (when) suddenly two men dressed in white garments stood beside them.  They said, “Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky?

Their hope was clear indeed: to follow Jesus to heaven, to leave behind this world where beauty does indeed abound, but not without deception and suffering; where knowledge, though constantly increasing, can never be comprehensive; and so, being unable to throw off that invisible companion of ignorance, does not always or necessarily lead to peace, understanding or wisdom; and where -- because all things have but their day before passing on -- though much is promised, no true fulfilment can be found.

Our hope, dear friends in Christ is, likewise, to know and to share in the riches of the God’s glorious inheritance promised to all who remain steadfast in faith and love for Jesus: those saints glorious in their courage under persecution and torture, to those saints, strong and faithful though, at times, but slight in body and tender in years;  those saints, whose perseverance was not sustained by hatred or bravado but characterized by humility and forgiveness; to those saints, whose goodness towards the poor and needy, the homeless and sick, the outcasts and despised, inspired many thousands of followers over centuries of darkness and cruelty; again,  those saints, whose wisdom has been such as to enlighten the whole world, and others whose humility and artlessness characterized them as true children of God.

Yes, we know something of God’s glorious inheritance among His Saints here on earth and how we admire them!  And yet, theirs is not the glory to which we aspire: they do indeed inspire us, but their glory is God’s gift to them, it is theirs, personal to their unique relationship with their God and Saviour.  We, however, aspire to share the glory of Jesus Himself, for we are members of His Body and in Him children -- adopted children -- of the heavenly Father, called to share in Jesus’ glory, that glory of which Jesus spoke when He said:

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.

Concerning such glory, our share in such an inheritance, even St. John the beloved disciple could say nothing:

Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.  Everyone who has this hope based on Him makes himself pure, as He is pure.

We hope for heaven, we admire the saints, but we aspire to share in the glory of Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, to Whom the Father has called us and in Whom we are made children -- adopted children in Him -- of the Father, as St. Paul says in his letter to the Romans (8:17):

If children, then heirs – heirs of God and fellow-heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him.

And there, dear People of God, is the rub: provided we suffer with Him.

Who wants to suffer for being Catholic and Christian when there is so much to hand that promises joy without violating our Catholic conscience? 

Ultimately, it is love for the Person of Jesus Who died not only to save us from the slavery and punishment of our sins, but also to offer us the joy of becoming a true child of God worthy to be embraced as such by the Father; and, through that love of Jesus, a gifted awareness of the sublime beauty, holiness and goodness of God made known to us through Mother Church’s proclamation of the Gospel, that can enable us to embrace the sufferings inherent in life today.

That is what the Apostle finally prayed for us in our second reading today:

May the eyes of (your) hearts be enlightened, that you may know 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.

In Mother Church our eyes are nowadays enlightened to know that the Spirit Who raised Jesus from the dead up to the right hand of the Father in heaven has been given to us, sent to us from the right hand of the Father by Jesus. He is the Spirit of the Resurrection and Ascension of Our Lord, and the Spirit of Pentecost; the Spirit who fills our minds and hearts with joy, hope and confidence, supremely, at these times; He is -- at Jesus’ behest -- the Spirit at work in our lives, forming us in the likeness of Jesus for the Father.

What are the riches of God’s glorious inheritance in His Saints?  They are indeed some sharing out of the glory which Jesus had with the Father before the world began, the glory which is His now at the right hand of the Father.  We do not know what our share will be; we do know it will not be that of any saint known to us because it will be our own sharing with Jesus, in Jesus, by the Spirit, before the Father:

We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see Him as He is; 

in accordance with the sincerity of that prayer we all surely intend daily: ‘Lord Jesus, please help me love You more, show me something of the beauty of the Father’.

6th Sunday of Easter Year B, 2024

 

(Acts 10:25-26, 34-35, 44-48; 1^st. John 4:7-10; John 15:9-17)

In our first reading we heard what is possibly the most famous, and surely the least controversial, of all the fundamental statements made in the New Testament about God:

            God is love  (1 John 4:16)                                

That statement of just three words from St. John’s first letter, are unique to St. John, they cannot be found elsewhere, not even in St. John’s own Gospel!!  And yet, as I have just said, they are the most commonly appreciated words of the New Testament, in fact they encapsulate  Gospel teaching  for both those who care not-one-jot for the rest of God’s Good News, and for those who appreciate them not commonly, but with the deepest Gospel appreciation and Jesus-bonding love.

For many, multitudes indeed, commonly rejoice in those words not because they want to delight in, learn more about, their meaning and significance for their own spiritual life in the service of Jesus before the Father, but to use them as a springboard that enables  them to assert that all love is divine, and that all earthly forms of loving, including even the most blatantly sensual and at times disgusting, are acceptable;  and indeed are authentic, expressions of God’s love – which, most certainly, is not true.

Such opponents of Christianity, such searchers for ‘freedom to sin’, latch onto a popular difficulty for the correct doctrinal understanding of those words I have highlighted:

God is love.                  

The original Greek text in the New Testament says that God is agape; the Latin Vulgate, old and new, always translates that with ’God is caritas’; and, for their part, our older English bibles translated that into ’God is charity’.  However, when the clarity of the word ’charity’ was clouded by the saying, ’there is nothing so cold as charity, then our English bibles began to translate ’God is agape’, with ‘God is love’.  As a result, we now have the situation where another worldly expression ’making love’ -- used almost universally for sex between adult men and women, not excluding, of course, these days’ sex between gays, lesbians, and others -- unavoidably resonates St. John’s words ‘God is love’.  So that, whereas formerly, although the word ‘charity’ was maliciously characterised as cold and unfeeling, it, nevertheless, always carried with it an aura of divine involvement.  Now, ‘love’ in the modern translation, inevitably brings with it implications that are both sordid and unchristian; and even though -- at its very best -- it can occasionally evoke what is beautiful in human relationships, hardly ever does it suggest what is divine.

There is however, another, not dissimilar, difficulty connected with the popular understanding of our Gospel reading today.  Jesus, as you heard said:

I have told you this so that My joy may be in you and your joy might be complete.

In modern parlance, ‘joy’ is frequently -- indeed normally -- mixed up with, understood as, ‘pleasure’ or even ‘excitement’.  Now, there is no true comparison between those three words.  In the Christian understanding ’joy’ is spiritual, whereas ’pleasure’ is sensual; and excitement can be anything leading to frenetic emotion: one feels pleasure, one is carried-away by excitement, one can only peacefully experience joy.  Pleasure can be bought or procured, whereas joy is only to be received as a gift, a privilege, given – in its most sublime form -- freely from above, evoked in such words as, ‘Thanks be to God’.

Jesus loved the Father; and before leaving the Upper Room to face His enemies and impending death His final words were:

That the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father gave Me commandment, so I do; arise, let us go from here.   (John 14:31)

He desired above all to lead His disciples to a relationship with the Father like to His own.   Jesus’ love for the Father was and is ‘agape’, and the Father’s agape caused Him to send His Son on earth to free mankind from the deadly burden of their sins.  That agape-inspired gift of self-sacrificing love on the Father’s part led His Son to embrace the Cross for the redemption of our sinfulness , and thus pour out that divine, agape-inspired-love into our lives by the Gift of His Spirit:

 God’s love (‘agape’) has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit Who has been given to us.   (Romans 5:5)

In that way the love which originates with the Father comes down to earth:

In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that He loved us (with agape) and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1 John 4:10)

However, though come down to earth in and through Jesus, agape is never earthly, it remains divine; and, by the unique inevitability characteristic of divine power, it ultimately recalls, brings back, restores, the Son to oneness with His Father:

            (Father) all Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine. (John 17:10)

Thus, the whole aim of our Christian life, the whole purpose of Catholic spirituality, is to allow that full tide of agape -- brought down, and given to us, by Jesus through His Holy Spirit -- to rule in our lives, as St. Paul testifies:

If we are beside ourselves, it is for God; or if we are in our right mind, it is for you, for the love (agape) of Christ controls us.  (2 Corinthians 5:13-14)

If agape is allowed to move us likewise, it will draw all, who are one with and in, Jesus, back to the Father; and that will be for our most sublime joy, for Jesus’ relations with His Father were characterized, as He said, by joy, and He wanted that joy to be shared by His disciples also:

As the Father loves Me, so I also love you.  Remain in My love.  If you keep My commandments, you will remain in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and remain in His love. I have told you this so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy might be complete.

Notice there, dear People of God, when so much emotional waffle is swilling around in presentations of Catholic faith and Christian discipleship in a vain search for easy religion and a popular Jesus, that Jesus -- in the words quoted from today’s Gospel -- associates LOVE, COMMANDMENTS, and JOY; where the link-word holding true love, divine love, ‘agape’, and humanly experienced Jesu-joy (‘My joy’), is the word ‘commandments’, and the obedience it calls for.

Jesus’ essential significance for the world’s salvation is summed up in His revelation of the Father, and in His gift of the Holy Spirit Whom He bequeathed to His Church; from these, spring the joy and fulfilment of Christian life and the irresistible power of Christian agape so definitely witnessed-to in some of the most essential aspects of the Gospel message:

            Rejoice Mary, the Lord is with you.

The angel said, "Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people.  For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord.   (Luke 2:10-12)

Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.    (John 14:27)

Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.        (John 16:33)

Dear People of God, in order to experience the beautiful truth, the unutterable joy, and the supreme power of the Christian way of life, that is, in order to benefit from the fullness of revelation and grace in Mother Church, we must learn to swim in and along with the tide of divine agape which determines her whole being: sustaining her unwavering hope and preparing her for eternal glory.  We must come to know and love the Father; and, as you are well aware, no one can draw near to the Father except through Jesus, because Jesus alone gives us the Spirit, Who is the bond of agape between Father and Son:

There are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these Three are One. (1 John 5:7)

Embrace therefore, People of God, the Gospel proclaimed by Mother Church, that, knowing the Truth and delighting in Jesus, you may receive the Gift of the Holy Spirit Who can fill you with that unique love which is divine Agape.  Allow that Holy Spirit of agape to rule your life in Jesus, and He will guide you along the way to the Father, bearing fruit for the Father and experiencing something of Jesus’ own peace and joy here on earth, before ultimately -- in heaven -- sharing in the eternal blessedness of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, to Whom belong all glory, praise, and honour, now and for ever.

Peter said, ‘God shows no partiality: in every nation anyone who fears Him and does what is right is acceptable to Him.’

Jesus says, ‘If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.’

5th Sunday of Easter Year B, 2024

 

(Acts 9:26-31; 1^st. John 3:18-24; John 15:1-8)

Dear People of God, it is important for us to realize that today’s Gospel reading is not recorded by the other three Gospels, only St. John tells us about Jesus’ discourse  to His ‘Last Supper’ disciples in which He said:

 I am the true vine and My Father is the vinedresser … you are the branches;

before going on to say, as you heard:

By this is My Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be                     My disciples.

From those words, it would seem that there was something not yet sure – fully secure, that is -- about the ‘discipleship’ of those committed followers of Jesus who had followed Him all the way from Gallilee to Judea and its hostile capital, Jerusalem  

Our second reading from St. John’s first letter, gives us some help, for there we read:

Whoever keep His commandments abides in God, and God in him.  And by this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit Whom He has given us.

The missing link between His faithful disciples who accompanied Him throughout His Public Ministry, and those same disciples Jesus urged at the Last Supper to ‘prove (yourselves) to be My disciples’ would seem to be the Risen Lord’s Gift of the Holy Spirit.   For they did, indeed,  ‘prove themselves to be authentic ‘disciples’ of Jesus and ‘Apostles’ worthy to be sent in His name to the nations, by obeying the Spirit of power given them after His Resurrection and Ascension, to  form them in the likeness of their Crucified and Risen Lord and enable them to proclaim His Gospel in His Name, and establish  His Church by their inspired teaching and preaching,  and the personal witness of their mighty deeds.

Whittled down in numbers by the snares of the devil and the trials and temptations of the modern ‘anything-goes’ world, It is easy for surviving, enduring , ‘going-to-Mass-on-Sunday-and-Holy-Day-Catholics’  to think of ourselves as ‘disciples’ of Jesus.   But we cannot allow ourselves to forget that Jesus required His apparently true ‘Last Supper’ disciples to prove themselves as fully authentic followers of Himself.  And so, each of us today should ask ourselves the question: ‘Have I proven myself to be -- in some measure -- a true disciple of Jesus, or am I a wind-bag full of nothing more than ‘the right words’, or merely a pretender, unable to decide and unwilling to suffer?

Dear friends in Christ, it is the Spirit Who establishes a personal relationship  between Jesus and His true followers, enabling  those who follow His -- the Spirit’s – lead, to abide in Jesus by obeying His commandments, and, by virtue of that relationship, to come to know that He – Jesus their Lord and Saviour -- abides in them.

And at this important juncture it is most important to realize that the Father commands us, Jesus commands us, but the Holy Spirit persuades, encourages, urges, guides, enlightens, strengthens and comforts us as disciples of Jesus.  He does not , however, command us, because His mission is to form us personally in our-own-truest personal spiritual relationship with Jesus, as an in-Him-child of God, for the Father.

And so, dear People of God, Jesus demands obedience from all His disciples, but above all He desires such commitment to be imbued with the intimate beauty of personal communion, whereby the ‘do-er’ of His will, delights in the awareness of His presence.

St. Luke presents the same teaching essentially in our first reading:

The Church was being built up; and, walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied.

There we have the difference between those who love Jesus and think that Christians have all they need for their right understanding and imitation of Jesus in the Bible (perhaps more simply in the New Testament, or even, indeed, in the Gospels alone), and those who – like ourselves who in the God-given Church -- seek not simply to know the words Jesus uttered and imitate the things He did, but aspire above all to be formed by the very Spirit of Jesus in the likeness of Jesus.  We pray for, and invite, the Holy Spirit to guide us -- already members of Christ through faith and obedience -- way beyond, and immeasurably far above, any awareness of our own loving thoughts or strictness of our personal discipline, into a Spiritual, by-the-Holy-Spirit, conformity with Jesus.  For God desires that the full majesty and beauty of the Son-made-flesh be manifested in the most sensitive detail by the full complementary of a whole  family of likenesses formed by the Spirit in each and all the individual members of the Children of God – redeemed by Jesus -- for the glory of the Father of all goodness and truth.   No human being is infinite, and the truest spiritual likeness of Jesus can only be formed by a multiplicity of beautiful aspects, glimpses, likenesses and aspirations, of Him Who was, is, and ever will be, the only sublime human likeness of His heavenly Father.

People of God, God is holy, we, of ourselves, are not; God is good, we are needy; let us not, therefore, try to prescribe ourselves a ‘Jesus’ for our imitation, based on our own thoughts, no matter how studious or learned they may be, nor on our own aspirations or imaginations, no matter how pious they may be.  Rather let us try to just love the Lord proclaimed by Mother Church with all our heart, understand Him in her Scriptures to the utmost of our mind, embrace Him in her Eucharist with heart-felt warmth and sincerity, and then both humbly and prayerfully entrust ourselves to the Holy Spirit, beseeching Him to form us into a likeness of Jesus in Mother Church, as He most wonderfully formed Jesus Himself in the womb of Mary.

For we are all -- throughout our lives -- meant to be formed as other, mutually complementary, Christs in the womb of Mother Church, by the Spirit.  And after such a life-time gestation, our ultimate birth into heavenly life should be characterized first and foremost by a sublimely childlike cry of ‘THANK YOU, my Father, my God, and my All’!  A cry most befitting those worshippers who, as Jesus Himself revealed and John alone (4:23s.) reports, the Father desires above all:

The hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such people to worship Him.   God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.