Saint Matthias, Apostle
Acts 1:15-17,20-26  +  John 15:9-17
May 14, 2018

So they proposed two, Joseph… and Matthias.

Saint Matthias is mentioned by name only once in the Scriptures, on the occasion of his election to the office of apostle.  By this we see how important this ministry is to the on-going nature of the Church.

It’s fitting that the Church usually celebrates this feast of Saint Matthias during the Season of Easter.  Throughout the first weeks of the Easter season, we hear accounts of Jesus speaking to the apostles.  These words are the Lord’s preparation for His Ascension, and for the Holy Spirit’s descent.  These words are His preparation for the new life of the Church.  His words reveal to us the nature of the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ.

Hearing about the election of Matthias to fill the vacancy left by Judas Iscariot, we recognize that God the Holy Spirit works through the acts of the apostles and their successors.  Both the apostles’ human selection of two candidates, and the Holy Spirit’s election of Matthias to the apostolic office, are the means by which this vocation is given to Matthias.  Both divine grace and human works work together in the life of the Church, and in the life of each Christian, to continue the saving work of the Lord Jesus.

The Ascension of the Lord [B]
Acts 1:1-11  +  Eph 1:17-23  +  Mk 16:15-20
May 13, 2018

“Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved….”

For those who followed Jesus during the first century, the day of Jesus’ Ascension was filled with much fear and anxiety.  After all, the day of Jesus’ Ascension is like Good Friday.  Both days cause us to ask:  why should we celebrate the end of a good thing?  Why do we call the day of Jesus’ death “Good” Friday?  Both days point us to one of the central mysteries of our spiritual life:  those who are bound together by love do not have to grow weaker when they are separated.  When we must leave those we love to follow a higher calling, we have the chance to grow in our capacity to love those from whom we’re separated.

In the life of Christ and His bride, the Church, these two events—Jesus’ Death and His Ascension—were necessary parts of God’s plan of salvation.  However, in truth, God is never truly gone from our midst:  not on Good Friday, and not today as He rises from the midst of His followers.  Though He departs, He means to appear in new ways.

The Ascension of Jesus—His leaving this earth in bodily form—allowed his followers to assume their calling to be the Mystical Body of Christ.  Without Jesus leaving this earth, why would the Church need to be the Body of Christ?  Why would the Church celebrate the Eucharist, to make Christ present sacramentally if He were still on earth in human form?

We have to be willing to look for God’s presence.  Back in Jesus’ day, the people of Israel had been demoralized by the Roman Empire.  The nation of Israel had always prided itself on its military power.  Then their nation was taken over by the Romans.  “Where was God?” they asked themselves.

When Jesus walked this earth, He claimed to answer the question of God’s Presence in the world with two words:  “I AM.”  For this answer, He was put to death by His own people, sentenced by the Roman procurator.  At the top of Calvary, the crowd asked the followers of Jesus:  “Where is your God?”  On the third day Jesus answered their question.  But He gave this answer only to His followers.

Why, after His Resurrection, did the Risen Jesus appear only to His followers?  He did so because He meant for it to be their job to answer the question of God’s presence in the world:  that is, to speak and act in His Name, as one Body.

But for some days after the Ascension, the apostles and disciples weren’t sure about this great commission that Jesus had given them.  They were afraid, and they locked themselves into an upper room.  It wasn’t a coincidence that it was the same upper room where He had given them on Holy Thursday the sacrifice of His Eucharistic Body and Blood.  Ten days after His Ascension, God revealed Himself in a new way:  through His Holy Spirit, God bound the followers of Jesus into the Church.  By the power of the Holy Spirit, God began speaking through the followers of Jesus.

Saturday of the Sixth Week of Easter
Acts 18:23-28  +  John 16:23-28
May 12, 2018

“The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures but I will tell you clearly about the Father.”

The spiritual momentum of the Sacred Triduum and the Easter Season moves us through the Passion and Death, the Resurrection, and the Ascension of the Lord Jesus to the Solemnity of Pentecost.  In the Church’s celebration of Pentecost, we meditate not only on the divine origin and the divine mission of the Church.

We meditate finally upon the divine end of the Church:  that is, her ultimate goal.  This goal is eternal life with and in God the Father.  On this Saturday of the Easter Season, reflect on the relationship between the Blessed Virgin Mary and God the Father.  Think of how, from the time of the Annunciation, throughout the earthly life of her Son Jesus, to the end of her own earthly life, Mary had a unique relationship with God the Father.  God the Father and the human creature, Mary of Nazareth, shared in common their Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.  How often Mary must have turned to God the Father in prayer for support, comfort, and guidance!

Though you and I are not privileged with the unique vocation of our Blessed Mother, we are called by God the Father into His divine Life.  In these last days of the Easter Season, pray directly to God the Father.  Thank Him for His Son, Jesus.  Ask Him to comfort you in the face of trial, and for an increase in the virtues of humility and patience.  Ask Him to mold your faith, your heart and your mind in the likeness of His perfect work of creation:  the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Friday of the Sixth Week of Easter
Acts 18:9-18  +  John 16:20-23
May 11, 2018

“But I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you.”

Jesus uses the imagery of pregnancy to describe suffering in relation to joy, inasmuch as both pertain to Jesus’ Resurrection and the sending—by Him and His Father—of the Gift of the Holy Spirit.  While it’s a truism of our culture that any goal worth achieving demands hardship, the image of pregnancy is yet more pregnant with meaning.  The image of pregnancy connotes new life:  a life independent of—yet owing its existence to—the one who begot it.

How do we relate this to the Resurrection and Pentecost?  What is the new life that is begotten?  It is the life of the Church.  If you ask most people in the world—Christians and non-Christians alike—what the greatest Christian feast day is, they would likely reply “Christmas”.  That’s the correct answer if one asks the question in terms of money and energy spent preparing for and celebrating the day.  But liturgically, Easter Sunday is far more important than Christmas Day, a truth we can sum up with the saying that “The reason Jesus was born into this world was to die to this world.”

However, just as the meaning of Christmas points forward to Easter Sunday, so Easter Sunday points forward to Pentecost.  Pentecost is not more significant liturgically than Easter Sunday, but nonetheless Easter prepares us for Pentecost:  for the ‘birth’ of the Church, the Bride of Christ and the Mystical Body of Christ.

Thursday of the Sixth Week of Easter
Acts 18:1-8  +  John 16:16-20
May 10, 2018

“…you will grieve, but your grief will become joy.”

Just as the earth has two poles, so the Season of Easter has two poles:  the Resurrection and Pentecost.  Both are solemnities of great joy for Christians.  Yet each is preceded by an event of loss, of “grieving” even.  The Resurrection is preceded by the Death of the Lord, and Pentecost is preceded by the Ascension of the same Lord.  But to use the word “preceded” here is a bit lacking.  The Death and Ascension of the Lord are the “events”—the sacred “mysteries”—that make the Resurrection and Pentecost possible.

Jesus refers to both sets of mysteries—the Death and Resurrection, and the Ascension and Pentecost—by His words in today’s Gospel passage:  “you will grieve, but your grief will become joy.”  Today’s Gospel passage is from the sixteenth chapter of John:  part of Jesus’ Last Supper discourse.  In the short-term, then, He is speaking about His Death and Resurrection.  In His divinity, Jesus also knew of His impending Ascension as well as the Descent of the Holy Spirit, so He is also speaking about His Ascension and Pentecost.

Much of the world today celebrates today the Ascension of the Lord.  Some dioceses will transfer the Ascension to this coming Sunday, and celebrate today as a weekday of Easter.  In either case, begin a novena today:  nine days of prayer, longing for the Holy Spirit to come into your life more powerfully, and to help you live more fully your vocation within the Mystical Body of Christ.

Although most dioceses of the United States will celebrate the Ascension on Sunday, May 13, this reflection is provided early for the sake of those observing the traditional date:  that is, the fortieth day of the Easter Season.

The Ascension of the Lord [B]
Acts 1:1-11  +  Eph 1:17-23  +  Mk 16:15-20
May 10, 2018  or  May 13, 2018

“Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved….”

For those who followed Jesus during the first century, the day of Jesus’ Ascension was filled with much fear and anxiety.  After all, the day of Jesus’ Ascension is like Good Friday.  Both days cause us to ask:  why should we celebrate the end of a good thing?  Why do we call the day of Jesus’ death “Good” Friday?  Both days point us to one of the central mysteries of our spiritual life:  those who are bound together by love do not have to grow weaker when they are separated.  When we must leave those we love to follow a higher calling, we have the chance to grow in our capacity to love those from whom we’re separated.

In the life of Christ and His bride, the Church, these two events—Jesus’ Death and His Ascension—were necessary parts of God’s plan of salvation.  However, in truth, God is never truly gone from our midst:  not on Good Friday, and not today as He rises from the midst of His followers.  Though He departs, He means to appear in new ways.

The Ascension of Jesus—His leaving this earth in bodily form—allowed his followers to assume their calling to be the Mystical Body of Christ.  Without Jesus leaving this earth, why would the Church need to be the Body of Christ?  Why would the Church celebrate the Eucharist, to make Christ present sacramentally if He were still on earth in human form?

We have to be willing to look for God’s presence.  Back in Jesus’ day, the people of Israel had been demoralized by the Roman Empire.  The nation of Israel had always prided itself on its military power.  Then their nation was taken over by the Romans.  “Where was God?” they asked themselves.

When Jesus walked this earth, He claimed to answer the question of God’s Presence in the world with two words:  “I AM.”  For this answer, He was put to death by His own people, sentenced by the Roman procurator.  At the top of Calvary, the crowd asked the followers of Jesus:  “Where is your God?”  On the third day Jesus answered their question.  But He gave this answer only to His followers.

Why, after His Resurrection, did the Risen Jesus appear only to His followers?  He did so because He meant for it to be their job to answer the question of God’s presence in the world:  that is, to speak and act in His Name, as one Body.

But for some days after the Ascension, the apostles and disciples weren’t sure about this great commission that Jesus had given them.  They were afraid, and they locked themselves into an upper room.  It wasn’t a coincidence that it was the same upper room where He had given them on Holy Thursday the sacrifice of His Eucharistic Body and Blood.  Ten days after His Ascension, God revealed Himself in a new way:  through His Holy Spirit, God bound the followers of Jesus into the Church.  By the power of the Holy Spirit, God began speaking through the followers of Jesus.

Wednesday of the Sixth Week of Easter
Acts 17:15,22—18:1  +  John 16:12-15
May 9, 2018

“…when He comes, the Spirit of truth, He will guide you to all truth.”

Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman, the nineteenth century convert to the Church from Anglicanism, is renowned for many theological works.  One of the more famous is about the process of the “development of doctrine”.  Newman had from boyhood been a keen student of history, and later in life he said that “to be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant”.

To make an analogy:  as fundamentalist Christians say that God created the universe, Earth, and mankind immediately (that is, within six days), so the same fundamentalists often say that God created the doctrines of the Church immediately.  If a phrase is not found in the Bible—they insist—it cannot be admitted into mind of a Christian.  Therefore, dogmas such as the “Immaculate Conception” and “papal infallibility” are clearly not Christian—they insist—because the apostles who composed the Bible never used these phrases, or spoke about these topics.

However, if beliefs cannot be accepted by Christians if they are not mentioned in the Bible, then these same people cannot profess a belief in the “Trinity”, since this word never appears in the Bible.  “But,” these fundamentalists might argue, “the belief in the Trinity is in the Bible.  It’s the word “Trinity” that came later, in order to dispel false interpretations of the Bible….”  Yet such a defense supports Cardinal Newman’s teaching, which itself is simply an unpacking of Jesus’ words today:  “when He comes, the Spirit of truth, He will guide you to all truth.”

Tuesday of the Sixth Week of Easter
Acts 16:22-34  +  John 16:5-11
May 8, 2018

“But if I go, I will send Him to you.”

In addition to their divinity, the divine Persons of God the Son and God the Holy Spirit were both sent by God the Father into this world, filled as it is by sin and death.  Their missions differ, yet their missions converge as God’s Providential Will unfolds within salvation history.

Of course, before considering the Son’s and the Holy Spirit’s missions within salvation history, we ought to reflect on their work “in the beginning”.   God the Father created everything in the universe, visible and invisible, through His divine Word, and through the Power of the Holy Spirit.  The creation narratives in Genesis are more suggestive than telling.  Nonetheless, they point us towards contrasts that we ought to reflect upon as we approach Pentecost:  contrasts, that is, between God’s work of creation “in the beginning”, and God’s work of redemption in the fullness of time.

Perhaps the most significant contrast between the missions of the Son and Spirit in creation, and then again their missions in the work of redemption, is that in the latter they manifest themselves incarnately.  Their missions converge within the Mystical Body of Christ.  “In the beginning”, the Word remained the Word.  But in the fullness of time, “the Word became Flesh and dwelt among us”.  “In the beginning”, the Spirit hovered silently over the face of the deep.  But in the fullness of time, He is the soul of the Mystical Body of Christ, animating that Body’s members, so that the Christ’s saving work is carried out “unto the end of the age.”

Monday of the Sixth Week of Easter
Acts 16:11-15  +  John 15:26—16:4
May 7, 2018

“When the Advocate comes whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify to me.”

Today Jesus—still addressing us from the Cenacle, at the Last Supper—proclaims the coming of the Holy Spirit. We note from Jesus’ words that—as we profess in the Church’s Creed—the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the God the Father and God the Son.  Jesus Himself describes God the Holy Spirit as the One “whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father”.

In the Creed of the First Council of Constantinople (in A.D. 431), the first ecumenical council to describe at any length the nature of God the Holy Spirit, the council Fathers stated that the Holy Spirit is “the Lord, the Giver of Life [and] proceeds from the Father….”  This council did not state that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.  The phrase “and the Son” (in Latin, filioque) was added by the Church to the Creed later.  Controversy continues to this day as to the propriety of this addition.

Christians of the West accept the dogma of the Holy Spirit’s procession from both the Father and the Son.  We see in the doctrine an expression of the closeness of the Father and the Son, while maintaining their distinction as divine Persons.  God the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son because the Holy Spirit is the Love of the Father and the Son both for each other (not merely the love of one for the other).  Saint Augustine explores the meaning of this great teaching in his very long, profound, and difficult work “On the Trinity” (De Trinitate).  Pray for the Holy Spirit to enter your life more fully, and towards this end, plan to begin a novena to God the Holy Spirit this Thursday.