Pentecost Sunday Year C 2016

PENTECOST SUNDAY (C)

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

Saint Paul writing to his very mixed congregation – from ‘nouveau riches’ to slaves – at the vibrant Greek port of Corinth had to proclaim Jesus’ Good News in the face of social practices and current ideas both full and feisty, which demanded that he speak clearly and, when necessary, decisively.  And so, rejecting the idea that anyone could be rightly inspired to curse Jesus – part of the dregs left over from their recent pagan worship of idols -- he then declared:

Brothers and sisters:  No one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.

Now, those words are wonderful to me for Jesus had said earlier (John 6:44):

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

and together, those two complementary sayings embrace the most sublime and beautiful truth of our sanctification:  no one can come to Jesus and learn from Him unless the Father first of all draws him and the Spirit then enables him to say “Jesus is Lord”; that is, only thanks to the goodness of the Father can we encounter Jesus, and, only in power of the Spirit can we subsequently confess or proclaim Him.

Now, all that is mirrored in Jesus’ very first words to the disciples after having risen from the dead, and while they were still held chained by fear of the Jews:

Peace be with you.  As the Father has sent Me, so I send you … Receive the Holy Spirit.

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God, had inspired John the Baptist to prepare the way for Jesus:

In those days John the Baptist appeared, preaching in the desert of Judea; “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”  (Matthew 3:1)

Likewise Jesus, the Incarnate Lord -- one with the Father and the Spirit -- on beginning His public ministry, took up that very same call to repentance:

When He heard that John had been arrested, (Jesus) withdrew to Galilee.  From that time on (He) began to preach and say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”   (Matthew 4:12, 17)

How then could He -- the Risen Lord – after having proved the physical reality of His appearance, Personally identify Himself more convincingly to His fearful apostles as the Lord they had devotedly followed, eagerly listened to, and sincerely loved, than by speaking of the Father Who had sent Him, and of the Spirit through whom the repentance He had called for from the beginning would show itself in the forgiveness, healing, and renewal of their own now-to-be-bestowed ministry:

Peace be with you.  As the Father has sent Me, so I send you … Receive the Holy Spirit.  Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.

Thus the Risen Jesus showed Himself – by wounds and words -- to be indeed the Lord and Master they had erstwhile so proudly known and humbly followed.  Truly, there was no room for doubt with such testimony!

Receive the Holy Spirit … such was to be their spiritual endowment when Jesus would no longer be with them … indeed another Comforter, an Advocate:

I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate to be with you forever.  This is the Spirit of truth, which 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 14:15-17)

In that way the gift of the Spirit was made in the first place for both their personal comforting as individuals committed to Jesus, and for their confidence and courage as a small group of Jews thanking God for His gift of the long promised Messiah, before becoming distinct from their Jewish compatriots as founding members of the Christian Church.  There was, above all however, a bestowal of the Spirit for their Apostolic continuation of Jesus’ ministry by their divinely-witnessed proclamation of the Truth and Holiness of His Gospel to and for the whole of mankind:

I have told you this while I am with you.    The Advocate, the Holy Spirit that the Father will send in My name—He will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you. (14:25-26)

They had to wait and pray in Jerusalem for a short while before that further gift of the Spirit, praying with Mary the mother of Jesus … learning from her and looking back over those days, months, and few years they had spent with the Lord Himself, lovingly recalling all that He had said and done in their presence and company, and looking forward in anticipation to where and how the Spirit would lead them in their service of Jesus.  And then, most unexpectedly,

when the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all in one place together. And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house in which they were.  Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them.   And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.  (Acts 2:1-4)

Whom, what, did they proclaim?  The mighty acts of God manifested in Jesus’ proclamation of His Good News!  You knew that of course; but notice how they proclaimed Jesus: IN THE SPIRIT!!

Mother Church has never proclaimed Jesus as a mere record from history, even though  she has ever remembered and treasured particulars of His life and the substance of His teaching with all possible factual accuracy.  Her past memory of Him is also her abiding experience of Him as the living Lord and loving Saviour still alive in the minds and hearts of His disciples through His Eucharistic Presence, thereby enabling them to recognize and co-operate with the formation of His Body on earth, His Church, by the Father’s Gift, His own Most Holy Spirit.  And what exaltation must have thrilled the hearts and minds of the Apostles when the Spirit came upon them before the gathered Church for the very first time!

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.  They were astounded, and in amazement they asked, “Are not all these people who are speaking Galileans? What does this mean?”   (Acts 2:5-12)

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ let us deeply cherish, let us give heart-felt thanks for and lovingly meditate on, the Gift of the Holy Spirit which is ours in a truly special way on this a most holy day in Mother Church, for the Spirit is given that each and all of us might come to personally know and intimately love Jesus and thus give authentic witness to Him as living Christians and Catholics.

In the performance of that most glorious privilege, calling, and duty however, we must ever be on our guard lest we confuse our desire to share or witness to the Gift given us of God’s most Holy Spirit of Wisdom, Truth and Love, with any insidious temptation to self-exaltation by hiving off swarms of personal emotions and imaginations witnessing not so much to deep Gospel peace as to our own personal surrender to modern clamour for and delight in surface excitement.

There is comfort in the Spirit as the Apostles found, for He it is Who alone can conform us to the likeness of Jesus; and what deeper comfort and joy can there be,  than that of becoming more and more one with Jesus the Perfect God and Perfect Man  ? 

There is also power, purpose and commitment for us in the Spirit; for we are beings with potentialities able to respond to and conspire with such power.  Our hopes and aspirations likewise find supremely fulfilling purpose and commitment as the Spirit opens up before us all that God has prepared for those who love and serve Him in Jesus, on earth as well as in heaven still to come:

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.  To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit. 

There is so much on offer, so to speak, today for all who love Jesus in Mother Church: present joy and peace; future prospects anticipated in our hopes and aspirations; and prospects more glorious still, as yet unknown to us but towards which the Spirit of Jesus is guiding all who will be docile and humble enough to wait for His lead.  So much on offer, I repeat for all who want to walk with Jesus and become true adopted children of His and our heavenly Father!

This day of Pentecost is indeed like the freshly appearing beauty and joy of our springtime- renewed world after winter’s drear grasp is loosened by an invisible breathing offering life and promising hope.  Dear People of God, the Holy Spirit, today’s great and glorious Gift, is the Spirit of Wisdom, Love, and Truth; so in us, individually; so with us as a group; and so totally for us, individually and all together!!  Oh, He is beautiful and holy beyond any words I can conceive.  Happy and holy Feast!!

The Ascension Year C 2016

         THE ASCENSION (C)                          

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

In today's first reading, and in the excerpt we heard from St. Luke's Gospel, we were told how Jesus ascended to heaven as His faithful eleven apostles watched in wonder:

He led them out as far as Bethany, raised His hands and blessed them.  As He blessed them He parted from them and was taken up into heaven.

Just cast your minds back to the Garden of Gethsemane and Calvary and recall how Jesus had besought His Father to strengthen and guide Him in His hour of need:

“Father, if You are willing, take this cup away from Me; still, not My will but Yours be done."  And to strengthen Him an angel from heaven appeared to Him.  (Luke 22:42-43)

Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Father, into Your hands I commend My spirit"; and when He had said this He breathed His last. (Luke 23:46-7)

With such words in mind, surely we can be in no doubt about what Jesus would be doing when, after rising from the dead, He ascended, as we are told, to His Father in heaven: 

After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, He was taken up into heaven and took His seat at the right hand of God.  (Mark 16:19)

There at the right hand of His Father in heaven He is, first and foremost, giving glory and thanks to His Father for raising and exalting Him in answer to the prayers He had made during His agony on earth; and then He is also doing that for which He had been sent as man and for which He embraced the Cross, namely, seeking, working, our salvation:

Christ Who died, and furthermore is also risen, Who is even at the right hand of God, Who also makes intercession for us. (Romans 8:34)

There, St. Paul tells us:

He must reign till (1 Corinthians 15:25) God has put all things under His feet, and (given) Him as head over all things to the Church.

Jesus, in heavenly glory at the right hand of the Father, gives glory to His Father and intercedes for His Church and His People, for you and me, and for all who will love and obey Him.  Jesus’ prayers are effective, and so, on earth, His most Holy Spirit is strengthening, inspiring, and guiding, Mother Church to proclaim the Good News to all creation and lead the fight against sin.  When that work has been completed, and that war is finally won, then God's Kingdom will be established here on earth by the Son of Man appearing with His angels in glory on the clouds of heaven:

Then comes the end, when He hands over the kingdom to His God and Father; then the Son Himself will also be subjected to the One Who subjected everything to Him, so that God may be all in all. (1 Corinthians 15:24, 28)

Then, indeed, God will be all in all, when Jesus, the Lord of Glory, at the head of His glorious Body, the Church, and on behalf of all creation, solemnly intones the great eternal hymn of heavenly praise of the Father (Revelation 15:4):

(May all) glorify Your name.  For You alone are holy.  All the nations will come and worship before You, for Your righteous acts have been revealed.

This supreme task, duty, joy and glory, of redeemed mankind and glorified creation, to give thanks to God for ever and ever, was inaugurated at Our Lord's Ascension when the Son joyfully brought His own glorious Body and Blood before His heavenly Father, with mankind having been triumphantly freed from Satan’s chains of sin and death, and to be subsequently endowed with the life-giving Spirit of Truth and Love; and that is the goal towards which the history of salvation now irresistibly goes forward as to its ultimate fulfilment.

This was beautifully understood and explained by St. Irenaeus, in the second century, in his fight against heresies, as a modern author tells us:

"St. Irenaeus understands the Church as an ontologically unique community, not as a collection of spiritual individuals.  The special calling of that community is not to escape the world but to participate in its transformation.  Together with the Ascended One, in the Spirit, its members are granted … to offer a genuine oblation of thanksgiving on behalf of creation.  Through a living anthem of praise the Church overcomes the world's dissipating mode of existence and its bondage to the powers of darkness." (Ascension and Ecclesia, 70)

That hymn of thanksgiving which has now been intoned in heaven, as I said, by the Ascended Lord, is taken up by Mother Church on earth in a paean of praise which is her liturgical worship, above all at Holy Mass, in the Eucharist, which very word means "thanksgiving".

All thus far concerns the eternal purpose and ‘factual reality’ – for believers – of the Ascension of Our Blessed Lord.

But what about the Personal aspect of that glorious event … how did Jesus Himself approach, experience, appreciate, His Ascension?  If we can find out just a little of that we would have a most precious guide for our own preparation for and approach to death.

For Jesus, His Death, Resurrection, and Ascension were stages of one whole and integrated process of divine Fulfilment.  We, on the other hand, tend to think of our eventual death ‘on its own’, so to speak:  for very many Christians and Catholics death is the ‘end of life’, something that will hopefully happen to them ‘in the twinkling of an eye’, when they are too occupied or distracted to think about it; there are others, however, who treat death more seriously, acknowledging its approach towards them by looking back more carefully, repenting more whole-heartedly for past sins.  Future aspirations or expectations expressing present hope for a largely unknown future are, on the other hand, rare indeed and somewhat airy-fairy at the best when compared with regret for the past which is usually very real and heavy with well-known responsibility and fault.

We are disciples of Jesus, however, and He is not only Our Lord and Master, but our Guide and Saviour, and He approached His Death with His Ascension in view, with the result that His Ascension had a most important effect on and imparted a most Personally intimate complexion to His approaching death.   Death was, for Jesus, not DEATH as for most modern men and women, but a ‘transitus’, a going home to His Father, and that outlook can and should be of great assistance to each of us individually:

I am going away … If you loved Me you would rejoice that I am going to the Father for the Father is greater than I. …. The ruler of the world is coming.  He has no power over Me, but the world must know that I love the Father and that I do just as the Father has commanded Me.  (John 14: 28-31)

I came from the Father and have come into the world.  Now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father.  (John 16: 28)

Father, the hour has come.  Give glory to Your Son, so that Your Son may glorify You.  I glorified You on earth by accomplishing the work that You gave Me to do.  Now, glorify Me, Father, with You, with the glory that I had with You before the world began.  (John 17:1-5)

This hope to share in Jesus’ comprehensive attitude to death is no mere pipe-dream, because Jesus prayed most particularly for us to His Father:

Father, they are Your gift to Me. I wish that where I am they also may be with Me, that they may see My glory that You gave Me, because You loved Me before the foundation of the world.  Righteous Father, the world does not know You, but I know You, and they know that You sent Me.   I made known to them Your Name and I will make it known, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them and I in them.”   (John 17:24–26)

The Father’s love, lavished with total exuberance on Jesus, is available to us, Jesus’ prayer assures us; let us therefore give thanks for it, return it, and allow it to draw us with Jesus towards the Father more and more: with ever deeper and more sincere repentance for our sins, indeed, but also with a lovingly humble share in His, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour’s confidence and gratitude.  Jesus most markedly urged such trust and confidence in the Father in the following message given to Mary for His disciples

Jesus said to (Mary), “Stop holding on to Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to My brothers and tell them, ‘I am going to My Father and your Father, to My God and your God.’”  (John 20:17)

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, the mystery of the Ascension of our Blessed Lord, is a test for faith as Our Lord Himself declared (John 6:62-64):

What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before?  It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.   

By that very token however our Lord’s Ascension is a supremely rich source of food for Catholic life (with Jesus by the Spirit) and contemplation (of Jesus and His Father).  Here I have merely tapped open just a little trickle of such doctrinal devotion, may your prayer and faith win you more.