Monday of the Seventh Week of Easter
Acts 19:1-8  +  John 16:29-33
May 17, 2021

“In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world.”

This coming Sunday’s celebration of Pentecost is the backdrop for all our weekday readings this week.  Wherever we Christians are, we are united in the Mystical Body of Christ, and together we are praying this week for a greater openness to the Gift who is God the Holy Spirit.

However, we receive God the Holy Spirit not for our own plans and purposes.  He comes to us in order to ‘equip’ us for the vocations that God the Father gives us.  The providential plan of the Father, and the grace of the Spirit, cannot be separated:  both meet in the life of Christ’s Mystical Body, within which we live.

Each of us is called first through Baptism to holiness.  For most Christians, this baptismal vocation—the vocation to live as members of the “priesthood of all believers”—is deepened by a further call from the Father.  The vocation to Holy Matrimony, or to Holy Orders, or to consecrated religious life, gives specific form to one’s baptismal vocation.  Even more specifically, each Christian daily discerns the call of the Father to make small sacrifices with great love, as St. Thérèse of Lisieux teaches us.  So we beg the outpouring of God the Holy Spirit.