Pentecost Sunday (A) 2014

PENTECOST SUNDAY (A)                                

   (Acts of the Apostles 2:1-11; 1^st. Corinthians 12:3-7, 12-13; John 20:19-23)

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My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we are celebrating one of the three greatest solemnities enshrined in the liturgy of the Church: Pentecost, in honour of the Most Holy Spirit and the part He plays in the building up of Mother Church, and of our own individual lives as members of Christ.  There is much of beauty to be said about the Holy Spirit, so let me make a beginning with the words of St. Paul which you have just heard in the second reading:

There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit; there are different forms of service, but the same Lord; there are different workings, but the same God Who produces all of them in everyone.  

There are different callings for all sorts of people, but each and every one of those called is offered the same Spirit that He may both enable and guide them to suitably respond to their calling: as the Apostle of England, Pope St. Gregory the Great explained, “we are called to make the effort, and we go out to battle; but it is the Lord who does the fighting: the result is up to Him.”   There are different forms of service, Paul went on to say, but the same Lord: for whatever work we do by the same Spirit in Mother Church, is to be done in the name of, and for love of, the one Lord Jesus.  Finally, there are different workings, but the same God and Father Whose loving Providence orders everything we do to serve His ultimate purposes for the harmony and good of all; and St. Paul tells us elsewhere just what God’s ultimate purposes are, when he writes:

You are the temple of the living God; as God said: “I will live with them and move among them, and I will be their God and they shall be My people. (2 Corinthians 6:16)

Each of us, then, is called to serve our Lord and Saviour by making use of the gifts His Spirit offers us, and, in that way – by the loving Providence of God the Father – to help build a Temple for God’s Glory, and work out our eternal salvation as St. Paul explains further:

The foundation ….. is Jesus Christ.    If anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw, the work of each will come to light, for the Day will disclose it. It will be revealed by fire, and the fire (itself) will test the quality of each one’s work. If the work stands that someone built upon the foundation, that person will receive a wage. But if someone’s work is burned up, that one will suffer loss; the person will be saved, but only as through fire. (1 Corinthians 3:11-15)

In the first reading you heard how the Apostles first received the Gift of the Spirit and began to work under His guidance:

They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.  Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven staying in Jerusalem.   At this sound, they gathered in a large crowd, but they were confused, because each one heard them speaking in his own language.

Peter made use of his own particular gifts of the Spirit to proclaim the name of the Lord Jesus, and we are told (Acts 2:41) that:

Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand persons were added to (the disciples’ number) that day.

Or, as Jesus Himself more beautifully expressed it on a later occasion, the Father gave Him three thousand souls that day.

If we likewise, as living members and integral parts of the one Body of Christ, open our hearts to receive the Spirit, each of us will be given a share in the Spirit’s gifts whereby we will be enabled to do our own personal quota of work to prepare for and give expression to the ultimate beauty and variety of God’s Temple of glory.

All the parts of the body, though many, are one body. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one Body (of Christ) -- whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or freepersons -- and we were all given to drink of one Spirit.  The Body is not a single part but many.  (1 Corinthians 12:12-15)

There is another reason, however, for our different gifts: it is because we ourselves are all different; each one of us is a particular creation of God with our own unique personality.  Now, in the service of Jesus, the gift of the Spirit is meant indeed to make us all one, but not, however, all alike; and so the Spirit comes to make each one of us both a truly harmonious part and living member of the one Body of Christ, and also to lead us to become our very own self such as God originally foresaw, loved, and intended when He created us.  In God, individuality is meant to serve, beautify, and perfect unity.

 Let me give you a picture from the Fathers of the Church.  Water, as you know, is often used as a symbol of the Holy Spirit in the Scriptures, and supremely in the sacrament of baptism.  Now water coming down from heaven as rain falls for and upon all plants alike: water falls upon the ground and feeds the vine and the apple tree, the crops and the vegetables, to name but a few.  That same water in the soil, however, produces eventually wine, thanks to the vine, and cider thanks to the apple tree.  Seeds in the field, thanks to the one water from heaven bring forth now wheat, or barley; now parsnips or potatoes, each according to its own nature.  So it is with us, dear People of God.  We should delight in and treasure God’s Gift offered to us today, for it is only by His gracious dwelling with us and working in us that we can realise and fulfil our true and secret selves, for the good of all our brethren and for the supreme glory of God our Father.

St. John tells of an event which occurred in Jerusalem at the great Feast of Booths:

On the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood up and exclaimed, “Let anyone who thirsts come to Me and drink.  Whoever believes in Me, as scripture says: ‘Rivers of living water will flow from within him.’”  He said this in reference to the Spirit that those who came to believe in Him were to receive. There was, of course, no Spirit yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified.  (John 7:37-39)

Now Jesus prepares His Apostles and His Church for all those countless peoples who, over the centuries, will come to Him, thirsting for the gift of His Spirit.  He directs His Apostles to go out to all peoples in His name:

Peace be with you!  As the Father sent Me, I also send you.

And then, in order that His promise of living water might find fulfilment:

He breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

The Apostles could not give the Spirit of themselves, He had first of all to be bestowed on them by Jesus; only then could He subsequently be conferred by them in the name of Jesus.  But lest there be obstacles of sin in those asking for God’s Gift and wanting to offer themselves for His purposes, Jesus tells His Apostles:

Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them; and whose sins you retain are retained.

People of God, recognize and reverence the dignity of Mother Church.  To establish, to guide, and to sustain His Church Jesus gives His own most Holy Spirit; only in Mother Church can we find and receive the fullness of the Spirit, and only in Mother Church can our souls be cleansed and freed from sin in order to worthily receive and fruitfully co-operate with Him.

In matters such as this we must not blindly follow our sinful times.  Sins can be forgiven by God alone, is not enough that your neighbour or your friend understands you; it is not enough, in fact it is no excuse at all, that you are only doing what many people are doing; it would not enough even if a secularist government were to give you the legal right and their public encouragement to act contrary to Catholic teaching, as, for example, with abortive and contraceptive measures, for sin can only be removed and wiped out by God’s forgiveness.  Therefore Jesus gives His Apostles and His Church the power first of all to forgive sins and then to bestow the Holy Spirit.  None can receive the Spirit from the Church who is unwilling to seek forgiveness through the sacraments of the Church.

However, this emphasis on the need for sins to be forgiven is but the reverse side of the most awesome and wonderful truth offered us by the coming of the Holy Spirit into our lives at Pentecost.  Our heavenly, supernatural, destiny is to live and share with Jesus in the heavenly beatitude of the most Holy Trinity: to personally experience something of the divine love that flows between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the eternal peace of Their mutual and total commitment.

Notice, that relationship between the sharing of divine love and peace.  Jesus, having risen from the dead in His glorious humanity comes to His disciples and says, first of all:

            Peace be with you!

The disciples rejoiced greatly on recognizing the living Lord Who had suffered and died on the Cross; but Jesus, speaking a second time, insisted, ‘Peace be with you’.  He was about to bestow on them the most holy ‘Promise of My Father’ (Luke 24:49), His own most sublime Spirit … and for that, Peace was most necessary, much more necessary even than joy.  Peace was essential to both welcome aright and then learn to hear and respond to the Holy Spirit, the ‘Gift’ of God:

The Spirit of Truth -- Whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees Him nor knows Him -- you know Him, because He abides with you and He will be in you.   (John 14:17)

Only the Holy Spirit -- working in us and with us here on earth -- can form us in the likeness of Jesus so that in Him we may ultimately be led by Him into the sublime Presence of the Father of Glory.   When, therefore, God demands that we must be purified from our sins, He is not interested in morbid nit-picking, nor is He tyrannically demanding total and legalistic observance of His own arbitrary laws and observances; He is seeking to help us become -- in Jesus His beloved Son -- His own adopted children, able to share with their Saviour in ‘the glory He had with the Father before the world was’.

People of God, come forward with rejoicing on this day to receive the Gift of the Spirit from Jesus Himself anew in Holy Communion.  The Spirit alone can make you truly free, and enable you to experience the fullness of divine love and peace; indeed, He alone can make you fully your own true self, a unique reflection of the Father Who created you, in the Lord Who saved you, by the Spirit Who moves you.

                               

Ascension of Our Lord, Year A, 2014

ASCENSION OF OUR LORD (A)      

   

   (Acts 1:1-11; Ephesians 1:17-23; Matthew 28:16-20)

At the end of his Gospel St. Matthew keeps our attention firmly focussed on Jesus: he does not tell us about the promised Gift of the Spirit to be awaited with prayerful expectation and hope by the disciples, he fixes our minds on Jesus alone:

Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, to the mountain  which Jesus had appointed for them.  When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some doubted.

And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying,

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

All authority has been given to Jesus but He is going away; He is not, apparently, going to use this authority, not, that is, in the eyes of the world.  The glorious work of making disciples of all the nations is to be accomplished by His disciples, His glory is to be theirs not His, so far as the world will be able to judge (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. 

This is in accordance with a consistent principle of Jesus He gives His own Self, He gives us His own Spirit, to help us in all things and to make us, in Himself, adopted sons and daughters for the glory of His Father; on the other hand, He takes our sins upon Himself and subsequently, consistently seeks to glorify us while, apparently, disappearing into the background Himself: 

In that day you will ask in My name, and I do not say to you that I shall pray the Father for you; for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me, and have believed that I came forth from God. (Jn. 16:26s.)

Indeed, Jesus even goes so far on one occasion to speak of the Spirit and of the Father in our regard while omitting to mention Himself altogether (Mt. 10:19-20):

When they deliver you up, do not worry about how or what you should speak, for it will be given to you in that hour what you should speak; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.

The reason why the world hated Jesus and still hates Him and His, is not because of His human character, which is universally admired by all unbiased students of His life; no, the great trouble, so to speak, with Jesus, is that He claims authority over us, and intends to make us divine in Himself, using His divine ‘version’ of our humanity to wipe out our sin and, ultimate, to totally destroy the sin of the word!!

Worldly men and women want to live morally-carefree lives, they want to feel themselves free to enjoy any, if not all, of the worldly pleasures available.  Many modern scientists, delighting aright in their rational ability to scan and thereby gradually conquer the universe, cannot bear to think of mankind being in any way above and beyond their rational observations, calculations, and hypotheses: there must be other planets beside this earth where mankind – or the likeness of mankind -- is to be found; there is no such thing as a soul to make man essentially spiritual rather than merely natural, totally observable and predictable; sin is nothing real, and personal responsibility is a degrading myth.  Mankind, many hold, is merely a most superb machine, governed by genes, and showing pre-determined attitudes and reflexes; Christian marriage is inhuman; and the Christian faith is not only an illusion, but even criminally judgmental.

Today’s celebration of Our Lord’s Ascension is -- for such opponents -- another example, indeed, perhaps the supreme example, of the objectionable nature of Christianity:  for it tells us, they say, that Jesus goes away; goes away to pray, in order to effect the ultimate change on earth.  Yes, it is the central teaching of Christianity that good -- all good -- comes from God, by the gift of God, for the glory of God; and the great glory of human beings is that they are made for, in the likeness of, God: able to delight in and respond to His Personal Self-communication and Gift; called to sing His praises and to glorify His Name by serving as a channel for the  exercise and extension of His saving power on earth; and ultimately to find supreme peace and eternal fulfilment in His presence.

People of God, we who humbly and gratefully accept the authority of Jesus, can joyfully appreciate why, on this wondrous day, He should say (Mt. 22:38-40):

‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind’.  This is the first and great commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’  On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.  

He loved us, He seeks our glory at His own expense -- according to human standards -- in all things; and today, He is gone to the Father, is eternally with the Father, though never leaving us alone.  The Father’s glory and our salvation, that was always and is eternally Jesus’ aim and purpose; and He has left us – His disciples aspiring to be living members of His glorious Body – His own example, His words, and His Holy Spirit in the sacraments with which He has endowed His Church.

The Ascension of Our Lord is a ludicrous scandal to most of the exponents and expounders of modern scientific thought.   They can only accept as real what can be seen in some way and correspondingly measured, what can be tested, replicated and repeated.  But when you think on that, it means that scientific thought has a strictly limited awareness and minimal appreciation of our human life and experience.  It can stir us to the most sincere admiration and indeed astonishment for its discovery of innumerable facts and forces, both great and small, that govern and hold sway within us and without us in our universe; it does indeed provide us with food and all sorts of instruments and appliances that make life healthier, easier and more comfortable; it provides countless things for our use and profit, countless facts and figures for our cogitation.  But .. that is all!!

Science can tell us nothing – other than mere statistics – about the most immediately important aspect of life for the vast majority of human beings: it can tell us nothing about our relationships of love, our appreciation of what is beautiful and our awareness of truth; our sometimes vague but always most intimate and at times most objective (you are the guilty one!) sentiments of right and wrong; our awareness of, response to, and delight in innocence, which can cause, for example, the young of even the most rapacious of animals such as the tiger, polar bear, to appear almost irresistibly attractive.

People of God, Jesus has ascended into heaven!  He has indeed opened up for us a totally new possibility for life; not, as our scientific opponents rightly say, for natural life, but for that supernatural life (which they deny!) that Jesus offers to us and bestows on us through our faith in His Resurrection:  an eternity of loving fulfilment before the God and Father of infinite glory and all-embracing goodness!   All of which is rubbish, those who deride us loudly and repeatedly proclaim.  Why is it rubbish, one might ask?   The reply is, ‘We can’t find any place like heaven, we can’t locate or allocate it, nor can we measure, test, reproduce its supposed effects nor can we imagine ourselves devising ‘filters’ or programmes that might ‘provoke’ some manifestation of its being.  In other words, it is all RUBBISH!!

Are then our daily, most intimate and enduring experiences of love and friendship rubbish too?  Are there no such realities as beauty and truth?  Is there nothing behind our feelings of right and wrong?   Science says that there is no great, grey-haired Old Man judging us from up there!  Science is right there; but surely science cannot be proud to proclaim such a ridiculous idea.  And by such derision does science, do such scientists, mean to say then, that there is no one, anywhere, greater than the individual ME?  Am I known and answerable to no-one but Myself?  Are each and every one of us inviolable, untouchable, little ‘me’s until publicly found out and criminally accused?  Are goodness and wickedness illusions?  Are legal and illegal perfectly the same as, indeed even better expressions than, right and wrong, for the good and bad experiences we have in the course of our lives?

For believers, the Ascension is a celebration of the Sacred Humanity of Our blessed Lord in His most glorious achievement for us, and the ground of our surpassing hope and heavenly aspirations in Him: a new and transcendent home awaits us, where sin and death are unknown, where divine love (charity) reigns supreme and all that such love -- in whatever measure -- has moved, guided and sustained us to become and to accomplish here on earth will find both acknowledgement and sublime fulfilment there: 

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?   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.  (John 14:2-3)

6th Sunday of Easter Year A 2014

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 ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows Him.  But you know Him for He remains with you and will be in you. 

You know Him for He remains with you: under God’s Providence, though Jesus would apparently depart from His disciples, the Holy Spirit would come to abide with them, keeping them as one: one, in their shared memories of life with Jesus from its beginnings in Galilee to His Death, Resurrection, and final Ascension into heaven; one in their remembrance of His divine teaching, inspiring them with the ineffable hope of His heavenly promises, and climaxing in their increasing awareness and assurance of the mysterious actuality of His promise to be with them always. 

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

            Will be in you.

For -- with Jesus having ascended to heaven and asked it of the Father -- He will come to be with them as Pentecostal Endowment for the whole Body of Christ; and as Eucharistic Gift and Sustenance, to be in them individually as disciples to be formed in the likeness of Jesus by Him as living members of the One Body for the honour and glory of the Father. 

Because I live, you will live.

Indeed, He even went on to promise:

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. 

People of God, let us learn from the Apostles just how important is the Gift of the Holy Spirit Whom Jesus promises, the Spirit we indeed, at this joyous season, are now awaiting and expecting:

When the Apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent off Peter and John, who went down there and prayed for the converts, asking that they might receive the Holy Spirit.    (Acts 8:14-15)

Today we, as living members of the Church, the Body of Christ, are in the constant process of being formed by the Holy Spirit Who is living with us and in us.  And yet, every day we are being shown, with brutal clarity at times, that the society for which we are meant to be both sanctifying salt and guiding light is deeply alienated from God, to such an extent that we are inevitably forced to call into question the witness that we, as members of the Body of Christ and as channels for the Spirit of God, are giving to Jesus.  We look, therefore, with ever more humble expectation, for a renewed coming of the Spirit of Truth this Pentecost, that He, the Advocate and Helper as Jesus called Him, might indeed help and enable us to pursue more effectively the work for which we have been chosen, the work of proclaiming Jesus’ Gospel of Truth and Love with its joyous offer of eternal salvation, to the whole of mankind.

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, as we heard:

Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts.  Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope, but do it with gentleness and reverence, keeping your conscience clear.

‘Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts’, that is, guard against the poisonous atmosphere of much of today's popular thinking, proclamation, and practice, lest it corrode the strength and beauty of your relationship with Jesus; and, be ready, always ready, to give both an account and a defence of your faith to everyone who asks you.  

So often, in countless little ways, we Catholics and Christians can close ourselves to the Spirit of truth with the result that He is not able to work effectively either in us or through us:

The Lord said, “My Spirit will not remain in a human being for ever, because he is mortal flesh.” (Genesis 6:3)

We can so easily live as children of the flesh: 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 and mutual understanding; and in doing such things we shackle the work of the Spirit within us, indeed, perhaps we may even drive His presence from us.  We must never forget that our enemy is the spirit of deceit, and we should never allow him to deceive us into thinking that we can rightly express truth in a way that needlessly hurts, for the Spirit of Truth is also the Spirit of Love, and our calling in Jesus is to live and express the truth in love.

Here, however, a major question arises: what sort of love should we have for Jesus and proclaim as the truth about Him?

In last week’s Gospel reading Philip hurt our blessed Lord deeply when he asked:

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

To which Jesus answered:

Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know Me, Philip?  Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father.  How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?  Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me?

There we have a most perfect illustration of the absolute importance of the Spirit’s work of ‘forming us in the likeness of Jesus’.  Philip had not been looking aright at Jesus:  he had been loving Him, yes; but in too human a way; in relation, that is, to himself, Philip!  He had not been regarding Jesus as Son of the Father enough.  It is indeed lovely and most helpful to recognize -- with many popular and indeed beautiful spiritual songs -- Jesus as our Friend.  But, that is most certainly not enough, for there is so much more to Jesus!!   Love for Jesus is not true, nor is it authentically Christian, if its content of human affection and commitment tries to transcend, pre-empt, Christian Faith in Jesus:

            Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me?

And perhaps the very best way to get things right in this respect is to ever remember and reverence, love and delight in, Jesus’ own most sublime and total love for His Father, the very root and source of and ultimate model for, His love for us.  The whole of His Passion and Death on the Cross of Calvary was motivated, sustained, and sublimated by His transcendent love for His Father:

The world must know that I love the Father and that I do just as the Father has commanded me. Get up, let us go.  (John 14:31)

If we could admire, appreciate, and delight in that love aright then we would indeed be able to proclaim the truth about, and bear authentic witness to, Jesus before the whole world and thereby give unparalleled glory to God the Father.

We have to recognize that in today’s world and our modern society we do not address a ‘People of God’ prepared for over a thousand years to hear and understand the word of God.  As Jesus Himself told us, the Advocate Whom He asked the Father to send to us and abide always with us is unacceptable to the world because it can neither see nor does it know Him!  How then is the Gospel to be proclaimed?  

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

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 with youngsters who are misguided or older sinners who have turned their backs on God. 

 Here we need to pay attention to Peter addressing us in the second reading:

Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts!  Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope. 

You will remember that Jesus had previously said (John 6:44):

No one can come to Me unless the Father Who sent Me draw him.

Peter would therefore seem to be advising us to allow ourselves to become instruments through whom the Father is able to draw His chosen ones to Jesus. We are not to try to take over the Father’s work by ourselves choosing, cajoling, and chivvying, exhorting and harassing, and always with an eye on Church numbers and popular reputation before Catholic sincerity and truth, or Christian service.  Our very first and most important activity must be to, ‘Sanctify Christ as Lord in our hearts’, and if our love for and appreciation of Jesus is authentic and sincere, the Father will be able to use us to help and serve those He chooses to call and draw to Jesus in Mother Church. 

People of God, Jesus' promise to His disciples still holds for you and me in our world today.  We are called to continue His work, indeed, as He Himself said, to do even greater works for Him, in His Spirit.  For this, however, we need to prepare and pray for the coming anew of His Spirit into our hearts and lives by trusting ourselves ever more confidently to His abiding presence in Mother Church, and to the power of prayer when, as her children, we seek to respond and open ourselves up, to the One Who is ever knocking at the door of our hearts for deeper communion with us.  In that way may we be truly ready and prepared to:

Give an explanation to anyone who asks for a reason for our hope;

the hope, that is, which is summed up in those few words of Jesus:

I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. 

Let us, therefore, pray for God’s Gift of the Spirit to overshadow Mother Church anew this coming Pentecost, that the Father’s Name be hallowed -- as Jesus prayed -- in her public worship and proclamation of His Gospel Truth.   And let us aspire to welcome that Spirit of Truth and Love thus pulsating through the Church into our own personal lives of witness and service, that His most holy Will be done in us and through us; again, as Jesus when on earth, said, ‘Father, not My will but Thine be done.’

At present our Western world is allowing itself to be diabolically deceived as it proudly endeavours to demonstrate itself to be holy without God.  Let not us, People of God -- chosen, proud, and eternally grateful to be Catholic and Christian -- be infected by any such ‘holiness’.  Let us, on the contrary, consider ever more humbly and attentively St. Peter’s advice and guidance:

Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts.  Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope, but do it with gentleness and reverence, keeping your conscience clear