Trinity Sunday (A),

(Exodus 34:4-6, 8-9; 2 Corinthians 13:11-13; John 3:16-18)

The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is the ultimate and defining mystery of the Christian faith, but has sometimes been liturgically constructed, expressed and appreciated as something not only beyond our understanding but also far from plucking our heart strings with repeated variations of one in three and three in one, unity in trinity and trinity in unity, and even ‘una Unitas’, one Unity (!), with the overall result sounding something like a mathematical extravaganza or a collection of cold, abstract, concepts.

And yet, as our readings today illustrate, the Holy Trinity, though most certainly the supreme mystery of Christian faith, is not far from our human make-up and personal heart.

God created all things by His Word St. John tells us in his Gospel:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.   He was in the beginning with God.   All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.  (1:1-3)

“In the beginning was the Word”; what is a word?

Commonly, it is understood to be an expression of intelligence using breath: when we communicate with a word we express our thought by using the breath of our mouth, and in the Psalms we are told:

By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth. (33: 6)

This led St. Irenaus, when writing his famous work "Against Heresies" around the year A.D. 180, to say: "God has created the world with His two hands, the Son and the Spirit" ... His Word, and the Breath of His mouth.  And when it comes to the creation of human kind there is a vibrancy which is far, far removed from dry mathematics and abstract conceptions, for there the Son -- the Word -- gives form and structure to God's creation, while the Spirit -- the Breath of God -- gives life and vitality:

God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness."  And 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 1:26; 2:7)

And that background impression of personal and loving involvement on the part of the mysterious God of Israel creating by the breath of His mouth, with His two hands, so to speak, is now maintained and indeed intensified in His loving commitment to saving Israel according to an ancient tradition concerning the Prophet Moses as recounted in our first reading:

The LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him (Moses) there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD.   And the LORD passed before him (Moses) and proclaimed, "The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth.   (Exodus 34:5-6)

In the New Testament St. John never tires of telling us that God is love, and He demonstrates His love for us most sublimely through the gift of His Son as we have just heard in the Gospel reading:

God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

While St. Paul, the Doctor of us Gentiles, proclaims that same truth to our Western world when comforting his converts at Corinth, as your heard the second reading, by reminding them of the fellowship of the Holy Spirit:     

Brethren, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

Dear Brother and Sisters in Christ, the Holy Trinity is not some abstract concept but a Personal Reality mirrored at the very centre of our being, a Reality that is capable of fulfilling us and, indeed, transfiguring us by drawing us into sharing the glory of Its plenitude of Personal Love and mutual Commitment.

Let us now, therefore, give our minds and hearts to a short appreciative overview, so to speak, of this sublime mystery of God which can only be adequately expressed in terms of love, as manifested and experienced throughout our human history. 

The devil deceived Eve, and Adam had followed Eve into sin, and the world -- created for the glory of God and the joyful well-being of mankind and creation as a whole – became deformed, with humankind – creation’s crown and glory -- being subjected to suffering and death, ignorance and selfishness.  

God the Father, out of love, sent His Son to become a sinless man in a world where suffering, sin, and death, held sway throughout its structures and in all practices in order to save mankind, so dear to God: and taking human flesh from the pure and sinless Virgin Mary, the eternal Son of God became Jesus, the Son of man.  He spent His sinless life proclaiming saving Truth and witnessing to divine Love: setting at nought the devil's snares, thwarting his power, exposing his deceits and lies, until the contest reached its ultimate and inevitable climax in the suffering and death of the Pure and Holy One on Calvary, in the fulfilment of which divine love definitively triumphed over Satan’s power and the world’s sin, when Jesus the Son of man rose from death into heavenly glory. 

Then there began a re-creation of mankind in the Son by the Spirit of Holiness, the two hands of God the Father, moulding us anew as in the beginning, though this time not without our consent and co-operation: His Love would heal and renew each and every one of us if we would embrace His Good News of salvation.  God the Father would thus make, in the Son and by the Spirit, a new creation: a saved humanity, which, in its turn, would itself learn to triumph over the devil who once had brought it low.

God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 

The new creation would, as I said, be formed in Jesus; formed from those who would believe in the name of God's only Son and, committing themselves to Him through faith and baptism, would, in loving obedience, follow the lead of His Holy Spirit bestowed at Pentecost to guide His Body, the Church, to follow where her Head had already ascended.

People of God, let us here recognize the true nature of love; for God’s love does not just do things for us, it leads Him primarily to make something of us.  It is true that He does for us what we could not do for ourselves: He saves us from sin.  Then, however, He goes on to make something of us and do something with us: in true love He dignifies and even glorifies us!   For, once baptized into Jesus and washed clean of sin, we are then to be glorified as temples of His Holy Spirit and sublimely dignified as adoptive children of God, able -- in Jesus and by the Spirit -- to call upon God as ‘Our Father’.  Moreover, while we are still here on earth, all these our blessings are to be crowned by our being enabled to become instruments of the Holy Spirit and co-workers with Jesus our Saviour for the glory of the Father, as Jesus Himself said (John 14:12):

Truly, truly, 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 the Father.

That work, to which we and all Christian peoples are privileged to contribute under the power and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is spoken of by the Psalmist who reveals  that:

The LORD said to my Lord: "Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool". (Psalm 110:1)

The ultimate fulfilment -- when Jesus returns in glory as Judge, when our work will be finally seen to be fruitful, and when God’s plan is ultimately revealed in all its wisdom, goodness and glory -- will come, St. Paul tells us, when:

All things (having been made) subject to Him, then the Son Himself (the whole Christ, Head and Body), will also be subject to Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all.  (1 Corinthians 15:28)

People of God, the mystery of the Holy Trinity is a mystery because it is infinitely beyond the comprehension of our minds; but it is not a mystery in the sense that it is something foreign to us: for Divine Love, which is the essence of the Trinity, is able to penetrate and transform our lives, and indeed become the motivation and fulfilment of our very being, and in that way the most Holy Trinity becomes present to us, living in us, forming us, even working through us:

Jesus said, "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.

The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. (John 14:23, 26)

On this day, People of God, let us therefore take to ourselves, with pride and gratitude, the words first addressed by the prophet Moses to Israel of old; words which only now, thanks to Jesus and the Holy Spirit, begin to reveal something of their full beauty and significance:

What great nation is there that has God so near to it, as the LORD our God is to us, for whatever reason we may call upon Him?  (Deuteronomy 4:7)

Pentecost (A)

(Acts 2:1-11; First Corinthians 12:3-7, 12-13; John 20:19-23)

In our Gospel reading, St. John told us that Jesus first of all gave the Holy Spirit to the disciples gathered together in the upper room:

Jesus said to them again, "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 to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit.  If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."

There, He was preparing His Apostles, whom He was about to send out in His Name, to forgive sins and bestow new and potentially eternal life by giving them the gift, presence, and power of the Holy Spirit for their personal lives and public ministry. 

After thus receiving the Holy Spirit from Jesus, however, the disciples did not, in fact, start preaching anywhere; actually, they went back to Galilee and to their fishing, where Jesus appeared to them once more. Now that is strange; but it is also very instructive, as we shall see shortly.

In our reading from the Acts of the Apostles we were told of another, subsequent, bestowal of the Spirit, and this time a public bestowal, where the Spirit descended upon the Church as a whole:

When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.  And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.  Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them.  And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

Let me bring out clearly for you the difference between these two occasions.

On that the first occasion, mentioned by St. John in his Gospel, there was only a small group involved -- fearfully assembling in secret -- where not even all the future apostles were present, Thomas being absent, as we were expressly told:

The same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them, "Peace be with you."

On the other occasion, however, of which you heard in our first reading:

When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.  

That was indeed a gathering of the whole Church, as is made clear by the emphatic words: all with one accord in one place; and it was after this public bestowal of the Spirit upon the whole Church gathered together as one that the disciples spontaneously began to praise God:

They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance … speaking the wonderful works of God.

Now, it was only after this giving of the Spirit to the whole Church that the Apostles -- in the person of Peter -- began to carry out their commission to proclaim and to offer salvation, through faith in the Gospel (Acts 2:14-18, 36):

Peter, standing up with the eleven, raised his voice and said to them, "Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and heed my words.  For these are not drunk -- as you suppose -- since it is only the third hour of the day; but this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: 'And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, that I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh.’ Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ."

The Spirit, therefore, is primarily bestowed upon the Church as the Body of Christ -- the whole Body -- not just to one part of the Body, even though that part be the college of Apostles.  Once the Spirit had been poured out upon the whole Church, the special grace and blessing which the Apostles had already received became active within them, but not before.  This is what the Apostle Paul taught us in our reading from his letter to the Corinthians:

The manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all.

As the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ: by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body -- whether Jews or Greeks whether slaves or free -- and have all been made to drink into one Spirit.   For in fact the body is not one member but many. (1 Cor. 12: 7, 12-14)

A false emphasis on unity has often, in the past, been used to impose a strait jacket on Catholics: we are one publicly visible Body, under one publicly visible head – the local bishop or the universal Pope – walking in conformity along one publicly approved pathway.  But that is not the whole of Paul’s teaching, because he tells us that “the Body is not one member, but many”; for spiritual diversity – as bestowed and blessed by the One Spirit in charge of all -- is absolutely necessary if our unity in Christ is to bear full witness to the inscrutable depths and infinite variety of God’s manifestations of His sublime wisdom and beauty, goodness and power.

Today, however, whereas our political set-up seems to ape the old-church conformity through its promotion of political correctness; in the Church, on the other hand, the necessary unity under one head -- with the Pope as visible and temporal head of the Body whose supreme, invisible, and eternal Head is Jesus Christ, the Risen Lord -- is much enfeebled by individuals claiming the right to pick and choose what to believe and how to behave whilst still, paradoxically, asserting themselves to be true members of the one, universal, Body.

On this day of Pentecost, dear People of God, in our rejoicing, let us rejoice in the Truth: Variety and Unity are both essential in the Church.  She is not what the Corinthians wanted to imagine, that is, a gathering where each and every one could strive to display and develop themselves and their personal egos:

You are still carnal: for where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men? (1 Cor. 3:3)

On the other hand, neither is Mother Church like some marble obelisk that abides untouched by the passage of time; it is essential for her to grow and develop because the Spirit has been given to lead her into the fullness of truth and guide her into an ever more truly fitting response to that truth.

If there were only liberal-lefties in the Church, she would be like that herd of Gadarine swine that went off in a wild and unrestrained rush and drowned in the waters of Galilee.  Were there none but died-in-the-wool traditionalists, more conservative than Rome and more papal than the Pope, she would be like a stranded hulk held fast and immovable by its own inertia, impervious to the gentle breathing of the Spirit of Life ever seeking to guide her to fulfilment.

And so, People of God, today we – both as a body and individually – are being offered God’s best Gift: the Spirit of Love, Truth, and Life.   To fruitfully receive what is being offered we must want to use this Gift for God's purposes, and in God's way; therefore, in all our endeavours for God, His Church, and for our world, we should bear in mind that the supreme and over-riding purpose for this  bestowal of God’s Gift is for the common good, the good of the Church as a whole, and for the salvation of souls. (1 Cor. 12:7, 18-21):

The manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all.

God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as He chose.   If all were a single member, where would the body be?  As it is, there are many members, yet one body.  The eye cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of you"; nor again the head to the feet, "I have no need of you.”

On that first Pentecost, as you heard:

They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance, speaking of the wonderful works of God.

Today the same Holy Spirit still wills to come to us for a purpose: not frequently “to speak with other tongues” in our modern times; again, perhaps but rarely to enrapture our hearers with convincing eloquence and moving passion; but certainly to lead us to “speak of the wonderful works of God” as we have experienced them in our own lives,  giving glory to God by speaking – as best we can under the impulse of the moment -- of the influence which the truth and the grace of Jesus has had on our lives: the beauty our minds have been enabled to recognise and our hearts to appreciate, and the joy and peace which hope in Jesus’s promises has afforded us when faced with the bewildering difficulties and downright wrongs of daily living. We would fail God if we were afraid to thus occasionally ‘stick our necks out’ at home, at work, or in general conversation, by giving sincere and truthful witness to Him and to the Faith; for our first duty, as the angels proclaimed is to give:

            Glory to God in the highest.

However, because we are all members of the one Body of Christ, besides individual sincerity and truth there must be humility and charity in our mutual relations, because, our lives -- with all their gifts and talents and despite all their trials and troubles – can, under the providence and grace of God, serve the common good of the whole Body, as the angels went on to declare:

            Glory to God in the highest, and peace to His People on earth.

That song, once sung by the Angels at the birth of Christ, has now to become a sublime and eternal chorus in which heaven and earth unite, because Jesus, having finished His mission on earth and being risen from the dead, has now ascended to heaven where He is seated at the Right Hand of Power.  And, as the Psalmist prophesied, God the Father has embraced His victorious and glorious Son with the words:

Sit at My right hand till I make Your enemies Your footstool. (110:1)

People of God, today, Mother Church is urging and encouraging us to join ever  more wholeheartedly in that paean of praise; for the Spirit is being offered us in and through her liturgy and sacraments that we might work to make the enemies of Jesus a footstool for His feet as the Father wills: that is my vocation, it is also yours, indeed it is the vocation of all God’s priestly people held together as one in the embrace of Mother Church.  What a privilege we have: let us get on with it, with grateful praise on our lips and trustful confidence in our hearts!

5th. Sunday of Easter (A)

(Acts 6:1-7; 1st. Peter 2:4-9; John 14:1-12)

People of God, let me draw your attention to the first reading, in the course of which you heard the Apostles speaking to the early Christians in Jerusalem:

The twelve summoned the multitude of the disciples and said, "It is not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business; but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word.

You will, I trust, appreciate from that passage the importance the Apostles attached to their 'ministry of the word', which included what we might call today the office of preaching. In this they were being totally faithful to the Lord's command, for we are told that after His Resurrection:

Jesus appeared to the eleven as they sat at the table; and He said to them, "Go into the whole world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned." (Mark 16:14-16)

With that in mind perhaps someone might think: ‘But what about the Mass?’

The Apostles regarded the celebration of the Eucharistic Sacrifice to be of supreme importance, indeed absolutely necessary, for the Church, as St. Paul writes in his letter to his Christian community at Corinth:

I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, "Take, eat; this is My body which is (broken) for you; do this in remembrance of Me." (1 Cor. 11:23-24)

For the Apostles, there could be no conflict of precedence between ministry of the Word and celebration of the Eucharist, since prayer and proclamation are two co-related aspects of one reality: as St. Peter said in our first reading:

We will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word.

The Eucharist is supreme prayer, the prayer of the Church -- the Body of Christ -- with that of her Head, Christ Himself. Proclamation of the Word is a commission received by the apostles from Jesus, Whose Spirit will relentlessly guide and drive them on to proclaim His Name and continue His work of redemption for men and women of all times.

Consequently, a priest’s calling -- as a sharer in the Bishops' Apostolic mission in Mother Church today -- is to follow the Apostles' example by his ministry of the Word and offering of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, both of which he does pre-eminently in his celebration and proclamation of Christ at Holy Mass.

Nothing is more necessary and beneficial for our world today than the offering of Jesus' Eucharistic sacrifice, as Mother Church teaches us when she says: 'As often as the sacrifice of the Cross is celebrated on the altar, the work of our redemption is carried out' (Lumen Gentium 3). Nor is there any other place or time better suited for the proclamation of God's Word than when the Church community is assembled together in the house of God for her memorial of the Lord’s Resurrection through her celebration of the Eucharist bequeathed to her.

Here, People of God, we should notice that the ministry of the Word is not, primarily, a matter of being able to talk well: for example, a course to develop communication skills (to use modern jargon) cannot of itself enable or qualify anyone to proclaim God’s holy Word. God's grace and the Church’s commission -- together with personal prayer and appropriate study -- are the sole and absolutely necessary prerequisites for preaching the Word. For true preaching is not done by men alone, it is primarily the work of the Holy Spirit in and through chosen instruments opening themselves up to Him in personal obedience. Moreover, the purpose of such preaching is not to make Jesus popular, but to proclaim His truth and Mother Church’s teaching, whereby He might lead us all, in the power of His Spirit, to love, worship, and glorify the Father in spirit and in truth.

Do not think therefore that those who proclaim the Gospel in the name of the Church, that is the Holy Father, the Bishops, and the priests and deacons of Mother Church, speak, to quote Jesus, 'on their own initiative'. They can only rightly proclaim the Gospel under the impulse and inspiration of the Holy Spirit; and since Mother Church alone has been given the fullness of the Spirit, all receive through her the Spirit entrusted to them for their particular purpose and function. We were shown this clearly in the first reading where Peter, speaking on behalf of all the Apostles, said:

Brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business.

And we were subsequently told that:

They set (the seven men) before the apostles, and when they had prayed, they laid hands on them.

Why did the Apostles need to lay their hands on them since, as we heard, these seven men were chosen because they were full of the Spirit and of wisdom?

Their fullness of the Spirit and of wisdom at that time was such as to have enabled them to live as good disciples of Jesus gaining a good reputation in the Christian community:

Seek out from among you seven men of good reputation.

However, in order to fulfil in the name of the infant Church the special function of looking after those who were most needy, they had to be given the Spirit anew:

The apostles, when they had prayed, laid their hands on them.

No special work in and for the Church can be done without a special gift of the Spirit for that purpose. The Spirit guides, preserves, strengthens and inspires for the good of the Church; He will never allow the gates of Hell to prevail against the Church, and so He specially protects the whole People of God by blessing and prospering the sincere efforts of individuals called to serve in designated ministries as they seek to respond to their calling. Although He does not eliminate human sins and failings, nevertheless, the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of holiness freely given to all who, at whatever level and in whatever degree, humbly and sincerely work for the furtherance of Gospel truth and divine charity in the Church, the family, and society as a whole.

That is why Jesus said to His Apostles, and to His Church today (Jn. 16:13s.):

When He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.

And that is why the apostle John could write in his first letter:

We are of God. He who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error. (1 Jn. 4:6)

Most of the present difficulties and trials of Mother Church stem from an ignorance of the working of the Holy Spirit and an overdose of human pride. The Holy Spirit is always and only given to build up Mother Church for the glory of God, never to back up human pride or human passions; and yet there are numerous Catholics who think their secular learning or intelligence enables them, while others imagine that the vehemence of their personal feelings compels them, to intervene in even the most sacred matters of Church’s teaching and practice. These wrong attitudes have bedevilled Mother Church from the beginning, as St. John shows when speaking in the book of Revelation (3:1-4) to those having a false opinion of themselves or possessing a false reputation with others:

I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead. Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die, for I have not found your works perfect before God. Remember therefore how you have received and heard; hold fast and repent.

People of God, St. Peter told us that Jesus:

The stone which the builders rejected, has become the chief cornerstone;

and that we, His disciples:

As living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

That spiritual house is Mother Church where the Holy Spirit dwells and is ever at work to form us all in the likeness of Jesus as members of His Body and sharers in His holy priesthood, called to 'offer up (in His name) spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God'. All our individual and personal spiritual sacrifices, however, are only acceptable to God because of the real sacrifice of Jesus, which alone gives worthy praise and glory to the Father; and also because some members of the Church have been chosen and ordained to be instruments of Jesus in the continued offering, even today, of His one, real, and perennial sacrifice to the Father.

As a priest, I am a sharer in the ministerial priesthood of Jesus; but I am also, as an individual -- along with you -- a sharer in that other priesthood, the priesthood of the whole Body of Christ, in which each of us is called to join, here at Mass, our individual spiritual sacrifices with the bodily sacrifice of Jesus for the supreme glory of God, the heavenly Father.

People of God, our hope and our future is bound up with Jesus and in Him we have a sublime vocation which each and every one of us should try to build up more and more through our personal relationship with Him: for we do not have an impersonal calling, we still can and still have to work at it, and we cannot fulfil it without the grace and strength of His most Holy Spirit.

God is All in all for us, and He wants us to give Him our all in return. In Mother Church we are called and enabled to do just that by the abiding presence of Jesus in the Church and the constant working of His Spirit in the Church and in our lives.

Jesus Himself required His disciples to look beyond the physicality of His own presence and Person:

Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority: believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me.

I go to My Father. And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. (John 14:12-13)

In like manner He wants us to look beyond mere flesh and blood, beyond personalities we may like or dislike, and, as St. Paul puts it:

Through love serve one another (Galatians 5:13).

That means ‘work together as a team’ ‘ as living members of My Body’:

That the Father may be glorified in the Son.

We should all try to look beyond personalities and ignore our own pride, each trying to do our best for Jesus, present in His Church, in response to the gracious calling and power of His Holy Spirit Who works in and through all of us, each

according to the degree allotted him by God. As St Paul said, all of us must aspire to have the mind of Christ, becoming one with Him and in Him; for Jesus is indeed the truth, the life, and the only way to the Father, and only in Him and through Him can we give:

Glory to God in the highest and (bring) peace to His people on earth.

Fourth Sunday of Eastertide (A)

(Acts 2:14, 36-41; 1^st. Peter 2:20-25; John 10:1-10)

There was something to be specially noticed with regard to our second reading today, People of God.  At the beginning of the first letter of St. Peter we read:

To God's elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia. (NIV)

Those places form part of what we now know as modern Turkey, and touched also upon those mountain areas where the Kurds of today are trying to find a home and a national identity for themselves; and, of course, those Christians to whom Peter was writing were only very recent converts.  Here then Peter was seeking to encourage, strengthen, and to guide the nascent universal Church in the ways of Christ, and I want you to take note how he sets about it:

What credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God.   For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps.

Such was the way the early Church was built up: Christians were taught and encouraged to face up to the difficulties of their personal situation for the good of the Church and with their eyes firmly fixed on the historic person of Christ Who suffered and died to redeem us from the sin which is in the world and of the world.  In such teaching Peter was being absolutely faithful to Jesus Who said to His disciples:

If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. (Jn.15:19)

This message, still valid centuries later, does not make pleasant hearing in our modern, Western, consumer society, where there are many whose main practical endeavour is to enjoy life in this passing world in a way leaving them with nothing better than a theoretical dedication to anything higher or better, let alone eternal.  These theoretical Christians are, most certainly, not real disciples of Jesus because they are chiefly concerned about being acceptable to those around them; they cannot seriously accept what Jesus says about the world hating them, because they want, first and foremost, to enjoy with their friends what the world has to offer; overcoming the sin of the world together with Jesus is not an attractive proposition.

Perhaps, I can put it another way:  these pseudo-disciples of Jesus accept and appreciate only part of Jesus' life and teaching: they accept the teaching that He died for them and they like to think that He conquered death by rising from the dead.  But there, in fact, they stop.   For His Resurrection in glory means little to them because they cannot appreciate that Jesus’ risen life is the exercise of a heavenly life situated, for the time, on earth, but essentially expressive of and orientated to, heavenly values and realities; and this is because their absorption with the joys and activities, present-day responsibilities and attractive prospects of earthly life is so strong in their mind and heart that heavenly life has no real significance.

And yet, after rising from the dead in glory Jesus did not live an ordinary, normally human, life again here on earth.  He did, indeed, show Himself to the disciples several times on earth, but on all those occasions He appeared  as One Who had ascended, that is, Who was now living at the right hand of the Father in Heaven.  He had risen in order to ascend, because the life in which He rose, the life He offers to share with us, was, is, heavenly life, eternal and glorious.

You are His own special people that you may proclaim the praises of Him Who called you out of darkness into His marvellous light.

Those who imagine they can live as good Christians while aiming no higher than earthly happiness are totally unaware of, and indeed at odds with, their Christian baptism:  a bit like those fireworks we call "damp squibs": made to be rockets, they do indeed burn when their match is applied, but they hardly ever lift off into the air, and if they should begin to rise they go up only a fretful few yards before spluttering and plummeting down to ground again, with no further possibility of fulfilling their promise.

Those whom Peter addresses, on the other hand, are Jesus' true disciples, men and women under no illusions that the world can fully satisfy them or that, despite having crucified their Lord, it might in some way come to love them:

If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

Moreover, they also know and wholeheartedly accept that, thanks to Jesus’ Death and Resurrection, they are no longer helpless before the sin of the world.  They rejoice in the conviction that now they can overcome the world in and with Jesus, Who conquered sin and death by rising in the glory of the Holy Spirit, and Who now offers to all who believe in Him and in His saving proclamation of God’s Fatherly love, a share in the personal presence and sustaining power of His own Most Holy Spirit. 

These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. (John 16:33)

Therefore, you can see how much the early Christians and the early Church differed from many, probably the majority, of Catholics and Christians today.  It is commonly thought today  that the way to bring people to the Faith is by chatting comfortably around dinner tables; that the faith of young people and of converts can be strengthened by making worship more interesting and less demanding, drawing them into social activities and inviting them to parties.  Of course, these activities can have some helpful part to play at the beginning of Christian life, but they have little or no role in the strengthening of Christ’s faithful to face the trials and difficulties their faith will encounter in the course of real life, when things turn out differently to their expectations and when trials, misunderstandings, and even hostility or persecutions, come, perhaps undeservedly, their way.

Peter was very realistic in his address to the new converts of Asia Minor, and he not only warned them of the difficulties they would have to face, but even said it was their vocation, their calling, not only to suffer in that way but also to triumph over their trials in the strength of Christ:

What credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God.   For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps: “Who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth"; Who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously.

Speaking in this way Peter was preparing and strengthening them, as he does us, for whatever might arise.   As sincere believers in, and disciples of, Jesus, we are conscious of the sin that is not only around us in the world, but also in us ourselves, and we have come to find Jesus where He promised to abide with us, that is, in the Church, come wanting to be healed by Him and to learn from Him.    We know that our healing will be a life-long process, for the Holy Spirit of Jesus must open up our most secret selves so that, penetrating to the core of our being, He might form us in all truth and sincerity in the likeness of Jesus.  God tempers His power to our frailty, and so the Holy Spirit working in us can only change us gradually; moreover, the Spirit, having begun to work His wonders in us, has then to encourage us to commit ourselves to  following His influence and guidance with confidence, trust, courage, and that too is difficult and takes much time, because, naturally, we want to know where we are going and look to encounter signs every now and then that reassure us we are on the right way; we want to walk with others and find comfort and appreciation among our fellows, and so, all too often, we cannot hear or understand, neither will we follow, when the Spirit of Jesus would lead us along a way that is not level, well sign-posted, or well-trodden, by others.  We do indeed love to think of ourselves as unique, but most are usually both slow and reluctant to accept the consequences of such a gift if it entails loneliness or responsibility.

Today therefore, let our Easter rejoicing be both real and truly profitable, let it renew our faith and strengthen our hearts as we listen carefully and trustfully to Jesus' words:

Most assuredly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.  All who ever came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them.  I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.  The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.   (John 10:7-10)

Jesus is indeed the Way, the firstborn from the dead; He is the Truth which alone can satisfy and fulfil our deepest longings; He is Life itself unblemished and eternal.  Apart from Him we are, and we can do, nothing; however, with Him and in Him, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, the Father will raise us up to fullness of life by our sharing with Jesus in divine blessedness. 

Through faith in Jesus, the gate and the door, we have entered into the flock of God, and Jesus like a good shepherd leads His flock to nourishing pasture.  Having conquered the sin of the world, and having been raised -- still in our likeness -- to new and eternal life in the Spirit of Glory, Jesus is able to fulfil what He promised:

I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.   My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father's hand.  I and My Father are one. (John 10:29-30)

However, we must not interpret life-nourishing "pasture" where Jesus leads His flock in the sense of worldly "green pastures": a pleasing and pleasurable experience of life.  For Jesus' flock, ‘pasture’ means life lived under the guiding and sustaining grace of God, an experience meant to transform us and enable us, resolutely and joyfully, to look forward to a share in the glory, the joy, and the peace of heaven, which transcend anything this world can imagine, let alone offer.

Eastertide is a time of supreme joy for all Christians, but let us learn from Peter who, inspired by the Spirit of Jesus, spoke words of truth that pierce the fog of worldly deceits and our own self-indulgent fancies:

(Peter) testified and exhorted them, saying, "Be saved from this perverse generation."

Therefore our rejoicing today should be for the fact that in the Risen Lord we can now overcome our own sinfulness and the corruption and deceit of the world around us, thanks to His bequest of the Holy Spirit Who dwells in us and offers us strength and light to follow Jesus perseveringly along the way that leads unfailingly and directly to our heavenly and eternal home.