PENTECOST

WHEN WAS THE SPIRIT GIVEN?

June 9^th,2019: Pentecost, Year C.  Acts 2:1-11; John 20:19-23.

AIM: To explain the gift of the Spirit and encourage prayer for this gift. 

When was the Holy Spirit given? Today=s readings seem to give two different answers to this question. The first reading says that the Spirit came dramatically at Pentecost. The gospel, on the other hand, places Jesus= gift of the Spirit on the evening of his resurrection. Instead of a Astrong driving wind,@ and Atongues as of fire,@ Jesus breathes on his eleven frightened disciples and says: AReceive the Holy Spirit.@  

Why does the Church place these two readings side by side on this feast of Pentecost, despite their seeming contradiction? It does not hesitate to do so, because the Church knows that the primary intention of the biblical writers is not to give historical details. The gospels differ about a number of historical details. John, for instance, places Jesus= cleansing of the Jerusalem Temple at the beginning of the Lord=s public ministry (2:13-22). In the other three gospels the cleansing of the Temple comes toward the end, when Jesus visits the holy city for the first time since his childhood. They also say the Last Supper was the Passover meal. John places it on the day before Passover.

The gospel writers don=t have our modern interest in Ajust the facts.@ They are more interested in the spiritual significance of the facts. The gospels are religious narratives, written to produce and nourish in others the faith which inspired their authors. John=s gospel states this explicitly when it says that it has recorded the Asigns@ Jesus performed Ato help you believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, so that through this faith you may have life in his name.@ (20:31)

In their different ways both accounts of the Spirit=s coming in today=s readings tell us that the Spirit is the Church=s principle of unity. The first reading symbolizes this unity by the gift of tongues. From the dawn of history people have been puzzled by encountering other human beings with whom they could not communicate, because they spoke another language. The ancient Greeks called such people barbaroi because their speech sounded like Aba-ba-ba@ B gibberish. The term lives on in our English word Abarbarian.@

The Old Testament book Genesis explains the existence of different languages by the Tower of Babel story. When people threatened to build a tower that would reach to heaven, the story says, God frustrated their design by confusing their speech so that they could no longer communicate with each other.

The gift of tongues at Pentecost did not reverse this confusion. Those upon whom the Spirit came spoke not in a single language, but in the different tongues of the many nationalities present that day at Jerusalem. The unity effected in Christ=s Church by the gift of his Spirit is not uniformity. It is unity amid real diversity.

The gospel reading symbolizes this unity through the gift of forgiveness.  Breathing on the eleven, Jesus says: AReceive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive, are forgiven them ...@ Forgiveness means wiping the slate clean, starting over. Without this there can be no unity but only an ever lengthening tale of injury, resentment, reprisal, and escalating hatred B as we see in the Middle East today.

In both accounts the Spirit is given for all. The Adevout Jews from every nation under heaven@ mentioned in the first reading symbolize all races and people on earth. Their response to the Spirit=s coming is a description of the Church=s work down through history. AEach of us hears them speaking in his native language ... of the mighty acts of God.@ 

The gospel expresses this universality less dramatically but no less definitely in Jesus= words: AAs the Father has sent me, so I send you.@ Jesus was sent by his Father to all. No one was ever excluded from his concern or love: not the Awoman known in the town to be a sinner,@ who washed Jesus= feet and dried them with her hair (Lk 7:37f); not the Samaritan woman at the well with her five husbands (Jn 4:18); not the repentant thief crucified next to Jesus (Lk 23:43). Following his resurrection, therefore, Jesus entrusts this universal mission to the Eleven, who represent all of Christ=s followers in all ages, ourselves included.

So when is the Spirit given? Continually! Christ=s gift of the Spirit was not just long ago and far away. The risen Lord bestows his Spirit on his Church and each of its members in all ages. Far from being an embarrassment to be explained away, therefore, the two different accounts of the Spirit=s coming in today=s readings illustrate an essential aspect of Christ=s continuing concern for his Church.

There is never a time when the risen Lord is not bestowing the gift of his Spirit. The Spirit comes whenever two or three are gathered together in Christ=s name (cf. Mt 18:20); whenever we celebrate one of the Church=s sacraments; whenever we read or hear God=s word; whenever, in Christ=s name, the hungry are fed, the naked clothed, the sick or imprisoned visited, or strangers sheltered (cf. Mt. 25:35-40). 
         Can we predict or control the Spirit=s coming? We cannot. God gives himself in sovereign freedom. Always, however, the Lord gives his Spirit in some manner, and at some time, to those who pray. With joyful hearts, therefore, we join on this feast of Pentecost in the Church=s unceasing prayer for the Spirit=s gift. 

Come down, O love divine, seek thou this soul of mine,

And visit it with thine own ardor glowing;

O Comforter draw near, within my heart appear,

And kindle it, thy holy flame bestowing.  

O let it freely burn, till earthly passions turn

To dust and ashes in its heat consuming;

And let thy glorious light, shine ever on my sight,

And clothe me round, the while my path illuming.

 

Let holy charity my outward vesture be,

And lowliness become my inner clothing.

True lowliness of heart, which takes the humbler part,

And o=er its own shortcomings weeps with loathing. 

And so the yearning strong with which the soul will long,

Shall far outpass the power of human telling;

For none can guess its grace, till he become the place

Wherein the Holy Spirit makes his dwelling.

Jay Hughes

               http://jaystl.blogspot.com/

 

"I PRAY FOR THE ONES YOU HAVE GIVEN ME."

Homily for June 4^th, 2019: John 17:1-11a.

          In today’s gospel we come to one of the most majestic passages in John’s gospel, Jesus’ so-called High Priestly prayer. Knowing that his life is drawing to its close, Jesus stands before us not to offer sacrifice – that will come the next day, on Calvary. Rather he stands before God’s throne offering intercession for his friends – ourselves included.

          The passage begins by telling us that Jesus “raised his eyes to heaven.” He is speaking not to us, but to his heavenly Father. He did the same at the Last Supper, as we hear in the first Eucharistic Prayer: “On the day before he was to suffer, he took break in his holy and venerable hands, and with eyes raised to heaven … he said the blessing, broke the bread and gave it to his disciples … ”

          Reading the words of his prayer, we get the impression that Jesus has already crossed the threshold between time and eternity and is now on the way to his Father. The twice repeated word “Father” gives Jesus’ prayer a note of special intimacy. He asks nothing for himself. His words are more a prayer of union than of petition.  

Jesus does ask for “glory.” But his glory is not distinct from the glory of the Father. During his earthly life Jesus’ glory was visible through what John’s gospel calls “signs” – miracles such as the changing of water into wine at the wedding in Cana, Jesus’ healings, the stilling of the storm on the lake, his feeding of a vast crown in the wilderness. At Cana Jesus said: “My hour has not yet come.” (2:4) Now Jesus’ hour has come. We pass from signs to reality. “The hour” is the time for the Son of Man to be glorified. Jesus’ earthly life ends with his return to his Father.  

In a real sense, however, his real work is only beginning. We know this from Jesus’ words about “the ones you have given me”: “Now they realize that you all gave me comes from you …. They have known that in truth I came from you, they have believed it was you who sent me.”

Understanding Jesus’ true identity and his sending by the Father includes obedience to God’s Commandments. Knowing that we cannot obey without God’s help, Jesus says: “I pray for them.” This prayer for us, Jesus’ friends, continues today, and until the Jesus returns in glory, at the world’s end.

"WHATEVER YOU ASK IN MY NAME . . ."

Homily for June 1^st, 2019: John 16:20-23.

          “You will weep and mourn,” Jesus says, “while the world rejoices.” In both halves of this statement Jesus is telling his friends what will happen at his impending death. That his friends will weep and mourn is obvious. But why will the world rejoice at Jesus’ death? Because the One whose whole life and words were a rebuke to all who live for themselves, and not for God and others, is no longer there to make them uncomfortable. 

          In his resurrection, however, this pattern of grief and joy will be reversed. Now it is “the world” which will grieve. “The world” in John’s gospel refers to those who organize their lives without reference to God and against God, experiencing in consequence emptiness, frustration, and loneliness. Mother Teresa, now Saint Teresa of Calcutta, used to say: “Loneliness is the greatest suffering today: being unloved, just having no one.” The only one who can completely remove this loneliness is God. For those who reject God, therefore, and live as if he did not exist, loneliness remains, and with it the grief of which Jesus speaks here.

          “But I will see you again,” Jesus says, “and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you.” Jesus is referring not merely to his resurrection appearances, which were few, brief, and transitory. He is speaking about his sending of what is called, variously, the Comforter, Paraclete, or Advocate – in other words, the Holy Spirit. Following his return to heaven Jesus is present with us now through his Spirit, available to all, at all times, throughout the whole world. This explains why Jesus said earlier in this sixteenth chapter of John’s gospel: “It is expedient for you that I go away. If I fail to go the Paraclete will never come to you, whereas if I go, I will send him to you” (vs. 7).  

          Those filled with the Spirit are so united to Jesus that their prayers in his name will be in accord with his Father’s will, and so can be granted. Jesus is not speaking just about prayer for our everyday needs. His words about asking in his name refer to asking for whatever will deepen the eternal life for which we are destined, and make fruitful the Spirit’s work.

          How better can we respond to today’s gospel than by praying the age-old and powerful prayer: “Come, Lord Jesus!”

'THE INFANT LEAPT IN HER WOMB FOR JOY."

Homily for May 31^st, 2019. The Visitation, Luke 1:39-56.

Luke’s gospel tells us that when the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary to tell her that God wanted her to be the mother of God’s son, Gabriel also told her that Mary’s cousin Elizabeth, though far beyond child-bearing age, was also, as our British cousins say, “in a family way” – six months pregnant, in fact. With characteristic generosity, Mary decides to go and visit Elizabeth. She couldn’t start right away. It was a man’s world. A woman, especially a young teenager like Mary, could not travel alone. She must have at least one chaperone.  

When Mary arrives at her cousin’s house and greets her, Elizabeth, as we have just heard, “cried out in a loud voice and said, ‘Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. … The moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy.’” Doctors tell us that a new mother (and Elizabeth, though old, was pregnant for the first time) usually begins to feel her baby moving in her womb during the fifth month of pregnancy. Thereafter the movements become increasingly frequent and intense. Considering the time it would have taken Mary to reach her, Elizabeth is now in her seventh month at least. Her baby is now very active. Moreover, medical science has discovered, fairly recently, something called the “startle response,” when the baby moves on hearing a sound outside the mother. The child in Elizabeth’s womb, who would become John the Baptist, was reacting to the sound of Mary’s loud cry, greeting with joy, as his mother said, the approach of his younger unborn kinsman, Jesus. How marvelous are God’s works!

With the words, “Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled,” Elizabeth acknowledges her failure to believe that a woman as old as she was could conceive. And Mary responds with words that proclaim the reversal of all normal worldly expectations. She praises God for scattering the proud, casting down the mighty, raising up the lowly, feeding the hungry, while sending the rich away hungry.  

Three decades later her Son, in his Sermon on the Mount, would speak remarkably similar words, calling blest (which means happy) the poor in spirit, the sorrowing, the lowly, those who hunger and thirst for holiness, the merciful, the single-hearted, the peacemakers, those persecuted for holiness’ sake, and all those insulted, persecuted, and slandered because of Him who spoke these words. (Matthew 5:3-12)

Truly marvelous are God’s works, wonderful indeed!

"YOUR GRIEF WILL BECOME JOY."

Homily for May 30^th, 2019: John 16:16-20.

          “What does this mean that he is saying to us, ‘A little while and you will no longer see me, and again a little while later and you will see me’” Jesus’ disciples ask one another. “We do not know what he means.” How often preachers, and readers of the gospels as well, repeat that statement; if not aloud, at least in thought: “We do not know what he means.” Not everything in Scripture is clear, simple, or obvious, by any means.

          If we believe that Jesus spoke these words in connection with the Last Supper, then Jesus’ “little while” would refer to the time between Jesus’ burial on Good Friday and his resurrection on the third day. That is the view of most of the Eastern Church Fathers. There is a difficulty with this interpretation, however. Jesus tells his disciples, “You will grieve, but your grief will become joy,” adding two verses later: “Then your hearts will rejoice, with a joy that no one can take from you;” and that thereafter “You will have no more questions to ask me.” (vs. 22f) However, the appearances of the risen Lord to his friends were transitory and brief. Were they not only sufficient to give Jesus’ friends “a joy that no one can take from you,” but also to justify Jesus’ further statement that “you will have no more questions to ask me”?

St. Augustine avoids this difficulty by saying that Jesus’ “little while” is the period between Jesus’ ascension to heaven and his return at the end of time in glory. This overlooks the joy which his friends experienced as soon as they saw him alive again, in flesh and blood – though also so changed that at first most did not recognize him.

We need not choose between these two interpretations. There is truth in both. Jesus’ resurrection appearances did indeed fill his friends with joy. But only at the end of time will we have no more questions to ask him. Meanwhile we thank God the Father for raising his Son from the dead, but also for the Son’s promise, which we shall hear in tomorrow gospel: “Whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you.”

         

         

"I HAVE BECOME ALL THINGS TO ALL PEOPLE."

Homily for May 29^th, 2019: Acts 17:15, 22-18:1.

          St. Paul normally began his preaching with appeals to Holy Scripture – for him the Jewish Scriptures, which we call the Old Testament. The New Testament books were not written until after Paul’s death. Paul’s letters and accounts of his preaching in the Acts of the Apostles contain numerous examples of his Scripture based preaching. Paul’s address reported in our first reading today is an exception to this rule. He is in Athens, the center, in Paul’s world, of learning and sophisticated culture. What the Athenians knew about the Jewish Scriptures was comparable to what most of us know about the Koran: next to nothing.

          So Paul tries a different approach this time. He starts not with Scripture but with the actual situation in Athens, with its many temples to numerous gods and goddesses. This is an example of his becoming “all things to all people,” about which Paul writes in his first letter to the Corinthians (9:22). Paul begins then: “I see you are very religious.”  That is called, in rhetoric, a captatio benevolentiae: capturing the hearers’ attention and goodwill with benevolence or kindness – in this case with flattery. Referring to all the temples which he sees on the hill Areopagus in the center of Athens, Paul says that one in particular has caught his eye, because of the inscription it bears: “To an Unknown God.” The Athenians who erected it obviously wanted to cover all the bases.

          “What therefore you unknowingly worship, I proclaim to you,” Paul says. This Unknown God is the one who created all that is, he continues. He has come down to us in the person of a man named Jesus, whom he raised from the dead. The mention of resurrection causes some to scoff. Everyone knows that is absurd: when you’re dead, you’re dead. Others react more politely, but still with condescension: “We’d like to hear more about this – just not now. Another day, perhaps.”

          Some, however, accept Paul’s message, and become believers. One is obviously a man of importance: a member of the Court of the Areopagus. Another is a woman of whom we know only her name, Damaris. Paul’s attempt to “become all things to all people” seems have had only modest success. It is a picture of the Church’s evangelism in every age. As in Jesus’ parable of the sower and his seed: despite the waste of so much of the farmer’s efforts, “some seed falls on good ground and produces a rich harvest, at a rate of thirty- and sixty- and a hundredfold.” (Mark 4:8).

"THEY RETURNED TO JERUSALEM WITH GREAT JOY."

June 2nd , 2019: Ascension, Year  C. Acts 1:1-11; Luke 24:46-53.

AIM:  To challenge the hearers to be witnesses to the risen Lord. 

The French have a saying: AEvery time we say goodbye, we die a little.@  Farewells are sad because they remind us, even if only subconsciously, of the great farewell that awaits us all one day, when we must take leave of everyone and everything and go home, at God=s call, to Him.

Jesus= parting from his eleven apostles, described by Luke in our first reading and again in the gospel, was not sad, however. It was joyful. The apostles, we have just heard, Areturned to Jerusalem with great joy, and they were continually in the temple praising God.@

What explains their joy? It was the realization that though their beloved Lord and Master was no longer with them physically, he remained with them though the power of his Holy Spirit.  Two of the readings mention the Spirit. AYou will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you,@ Jesus tells them in our first reading.  The gospel confirms this when it reports Jesus= command to Astay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.@ A week from today, on Pentecost, we shall celebrate the fulfillment of Jesus= promise.  The nine days between the Ascension, originally celebrated on Thursday, and Pentecost are the origin of the novena, the practice of praying on nine consecutive days for a particular intention. 

  The eleven apostles filled with joy and praising God continually in the temple are a picture of the Church in miniature. That is what the Church is: the company of those who are filled with joy because of their continuing union with the risen Christ, victorious over sin and death, and constantly speaking God=s praises for all he has done, and continues to do, through his Son, in the power of his Holy Spirit.

Yet the Church is more. This is indicated by a word which is emphasized in both of the readings we have been considering: Awitness.@ In our first reading Jesus tells his apostles: AYou will be my witnesses ... to the ends of the earth.@ His words in the gospel are similar: AThus it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.@

The call to be Christ=s witnesses is not reserved for religious professionals. In baptism and confirmation we have all been called and commissioned as witnesses to the risen Lord. How can we obey this call in a world which often seems indifferent to Jesus Christ, and which regards religion of any kind as an optional extra, like jogging or stamp-collecting, for people who happen to like that kind of thing? One thing is certain. We witness to Jesus Christ more effectively by deeds than by words. You probably know the saying: AWhat you are speaks so loud I cannot hear what you say.@                        

         Society=s seeming disbelief today is a surface phenomenon only. Underneath there is deep spiritual hunger. People today are looking for assurance that life has meaning despite suffering, injustice, terrorism, and the certainty of death. This is our opportunity. We seize this opportunity by living as people who are convinced that life does have meaning; that this world with all its horrors is still God=s world; that the most powerful force in this world is not hatred but love, not death but life.
         That is our opportunity B and our challenge. Today=s celebration of the Lord’s Ascension assures us that Christ continues to be with us, in the power of his Holy Spirit. Like those first friends of Jesus, however, we are not simply to stand gazing up into the heavens, but to get on with the business of being witnesses to our risen and glorified Lord in a world that is hungry for him and his love. Like those first friends of Jesus, we too have received Apower from on high.@ Like them, we have every reason to be filled with joy, and constantly to speak the praises of our loving God, who gives us always so much more than we can either desire or deserve.

In a world filled with so much darkness, destruction, and death, we can still join joyfully in the words of our responsorial psalm: AFor king of all the earth is God; sing hymns of praise. God reigns over the nations, God sits upon his holy throne. Amen”  (Psalm 47:5, 7-8)

Let me close with a personal anecdote. Some time ago I attended a concert of the St. Louis Symphony orchestra in Powell Symphony Hall. The featured soloist that evening was the internationally celebrated cellist Yo Yo Ma. If you have ever seen and heard him, either in person or perhaps through a video clip on the Internet, you know that he really gets into the music he plays, swaying back and forth, and visibly carried away by the beauty of what he is playing. In a graceful introduction to his appearance the evening I heard him, David Robertson, Music Director of our Symphony orchestra, outlined some of the highlights of Yo Yo Ma=s musical career, and concluded with the remark: AEverywhere he goes, Yo Yo Ma spreads joy.@ How wonderful if people could say that of us.

If we are trying to stay close to Jesus Christ, and center our lives on Him, they will!

"I WILL SEND YOU THE ADVOCATE."

Homily for May 28^th, 2019: John 16:5-11.

          “I tell you,” Jesus says, “it is better that I go. For if I do not go the Advocate will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.” What is Jesus really saying? All depends on the meaning of the word “Advocate.” In the original Greek of the New Testament the word is “Paraclete.” In some versions of the Bible it is also translated “Comforter.”

          However we translate it – Paraclete, Advocate, or Comforter – it designates the One who makes Jesus present: the Holy Spirit, who takes the place on earth of the glorified Jesus, after he has risen and ascended to heaven to be, once more, with his heavenly Father. “It is better for you that I go,” Jesus says, because it was only when the Spirit had come down on his disciples that they were able fully to understand who Jesus was. The Spirit came upon them quietly, but nonetheless powerfully, when the risen Jesus entered the room where his disciples had gathered, with doors locked “for fear of the Jews,” and spoke the Hebrew greeting, “Shalom – Peace be with you.” Jesus breathed on them, and said: “Receive the Holy Spirit.” (John 20: 19-23) The Spirit came dramatically a short time later, at the Jewish feast of Pentecost, in a “mighty driving wind [and] tongues as of fire.” (Acts 2) 

Jesus goes on to say that the Spirit “will convict the world in regard to sin.” The sin in question was people’s refusal to believe in Jesus. This has been a theme of John’s gospel from the beginning, where we read:  “He came to his own, yet his own did not accept him” (John 1:11); and two chapters later we read: “The light has come into the world, but men preferred darkness to light because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19). The Spirit will also convict the world in regard to “righteousness” or justice, by reversing the unjust sentence at Jesus’ trial, which declared him a criminal and not God’s Son. Finally the Spirit “will convict the word in regard to sin,” because in Jesus’ resurrection it is Satan who is condemned, and his power over the world crippled. 

As he was being stoned to death, the Church’s first martyr, the deacon Stephen, “filled with the Sprit … exclaimed, ‘Look! I see an opening in the sky, and the Son of Man standing at God’s right hand.’” (Acts 7:55f). Down through the centuries since, and continuing today, the Spirit, who is the Lord’s gift, continues to make Jesus, now with his Father in heaven, present to us on earth.