The community of believers was of one heart and mind ….
One of the greatest tensions in the spiritual life is between individual concerns and communal needs. Given our modern secular culture, we tend to the former.
We can be lulled into nurturing our spiritual life as something that’s “just between me and God” or a “me and Jesus relationship”. A relationship with God certainly lies at the heart of the Christian life, but our lives are not given to us for our sakes alone.
Everything God graciously gives us, including our relationship with Him, is given to us for the sake of others. The graces that God pours into our lives are meant to overflow from our lives into the world through the Church.
The Church is the Mystical Body of Christ, the Risen Jesus in the world today. It is through the Church that we live our spiritual lives: both in receiving the sacramental graces that build us up, and in giving these graces to others through our vocation.
The Christian’s vocation is the hinge between the individualistic and the communal: each of us is called to be an individual for the sake of others. We reflect on this aspect of the Mystical Body of Christ throughout the Easter Season as we prepare for the celebration of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit descends from Heaven to strengthen the Church, and each of us who are her members, to carry out the saving mission of the Church.
“Do not be amazed that I told you, ‘You must be born from above.’”
Today’s Gospel passage shows Jesus teaching Nicodemus a lesson about the Holy Spirit. The First Reading shows the members of the early Church living this lesson.
The Holy Spirit animates the soul of the Christian, who lives her or his life within the Body of Christ. Sometimes the Holy Spirit is metaphorically called the soul of the Body of Christ. This image helps us recognize how completely we are to live within the Church. This image also helps us see how the Holy Spirit must be the source of our every thought and act.
When the first Christians received the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, they surely never imagined themselves experiencing the conflicts that we read about in the Acts of the Apostles. The Holy Spirit led them where they may not previously have been willing to go. In our own lives, we need to allow the Holy Spirit to animate our lives. When we do, the Holy Spirit will make the virtue of humility easier to live, since both the conflicts and victories in our lives are His.
CCC 448, 641-646: appearances of the risen Christ CCC 1084-1089: sanctifying presence of the risen Christ in the liturgy CCC 2177-2178, 1342: the Sunday Eucharist CCC 654-655, 1988: our new birth in the Resurrection of Christ CCC 976-983, 1441-1442: “I believe in the forgiveness of sins” CCC 949-953, 1329, 1342, 2624, 2790: communion in spiritual goods
+ + +
On this Sunday’s solemnity of Divine Mercy, the Church calls us to rejoice that the Sacrament of Confession, and the peace that flows from it, are the “first fruits” of Jesus’ Resurrection. In the Old Testament, the People of God—Israel—gave God the first fruits of their harvests, although they were so precious and needed for life. But in the New Testament, it’s God who gives to His People—the Church—the first fruits of the Resurrection of His most precious Son.
Many of our separated brethren claim that there’s no need to confess one’s sins to a priest. Against such a claim stand the words of St. John the Evangelist, who tells us that just a few hours after Jesus’ Resurrection, He showed Himself to His apostles, “breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.’” Consider from three perspectives the first fruits that flow from this gift of the Holy Spirit.
First, Confession reflects the nature of the sinner. Jesus established a sacrament where we are required to confess our sins to another human being—indeed, a fellow sinner—to receive the benefits of the sacrament. God knows that if He made the default for forgiving sins the direct confession of one’s sins to God, the average sinner would grow spiritually weaker over time.
For example, if you start a confession of your sins directly to God and have trouble remembering them, it’s easy to say, “Well, God knows everything. I don’t need to remember all my sins.” That can begin a habit by which the sinner presumes upon God’s goodness, and demands less accountability from oneself.
From the opposite perspective, the priest is not likely to know our sins. So the burden is on each of us as a penitent to present ourselves honestly to God through a thorough account of our sins to the priest. But one of the benefits of Confession is that the more honest we are about our sinfulness, the more we appreciate the beauty and abundance of God’s mercy.
Second, Confession reflects the nature of the Church. The priest in Confession represents not only God, but also the other members of the Body of Christ. One of the many problems with the idea of just confessing one’s sins directly to God is that our sins offend not only God.
Jesus taught His disciples that God’s commandments boil down to two: to love God and to love one’s neighbor. This two-fold command is symbolized by Jesus’ Cross. The Cross has a vertical beam symbolizing the love meant to flow between me and God. The horizontal beam symbolizes the love meant to flow between me and my neighbors. As Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man, the priest in Confession represents both God and man: my God and my neighbors.
Third, Confession reflects the nature of God Himself. On the evening of His Resurrection, Jesus breathed on the apostles, and said to them: “Receive the Holy Spirit.” In Confession the penitent receives this same Holy Spirit, and if we know one thing about the Holy Spirit, it’s that He’s never satisfied to give life when He can give life abundantly. That is to say that in Confession, God not only forgives sins but gives many other gifts as well.
The Catechism lists all the graces that God gives in Confession. Yet perhaps most important among them is “an increase of spiritual strength for the Christian battle” [CCC 1496]. This gift is why we ought to make a sacramental confession at least once every few months, even if we don’t have any mortal sins to confess, but only venial sins.
After all, what is one of hardest parts of “the Christian battle” if not forgiving those who have hurt you? The divine forgiveness that we receive through Confession strengthens us to offer human forgiveness more easily to those who have wronged us.
Some people think Confession is only about the washing away of the sins of one’s past. But Confession is also about God equipping us for the days ahead. Confession prepares us so that when we leave the confessional we might serve Him as bearers of mercy, so that we might love God and neighbor as God Himself loves.
I will give thanks to you, for you have answered me.
Throughout the Blessed Virgin Mary’s life, humility marked her approach to her Lord. Humility is not a virtue that one can ever spiritually outgrow. Whatever graces God gives us, they are given for the unfolding of His plan, which often remains to us a mystery. Even as we apply these graces in our lives, we must do so with humility, as day by day, another aspect of the mystery of our vocation is shown to us.
Even at the foot of the Cross, Mary prayed in humility. It was with humility that she rejoiced at the sight of her Son risen from the dead. Seeing Jesus on that first Easter Sunday, she would not have known exactly how He was preparing His disciples—through the power of the Holy Spirit—to form a Church. Nor would she have known exactly how Jesus’ words to her from the Cross—“Woman, behold your son”—were about to flower with new meaning, when she became the Mother of the Church on the day of Pentecost.
If you do not already know it by heart, take the opportunity to learn the prayer Regina Caeli, the traditional Marian prayer of Easter:
V. Queen of Heaven, rejoice, alleluia. / R. For He whom you did merit to bear, alleluia.
V. Has risen, as he said, alleluia. / R. Pray for us to God, alleluia.
V. Rejoice and be glad, O Virgin Mary, alleluia. / R. For the Lord has truly risen, alleluia.
Let us pray. O God, who gave joy to the world through the resurrection of Thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, grant we beseech Thee, that through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, His Mother, we may obtain the joys of everlasting life. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.
What does St. John the Evangelist mean when he reports to us that the disciples “dared” not ask Jesus “Who are you?” After all, the Beloved Disciple had told Peter that this was the Lord. Today’s Gospel passage suggests some unresolved ambiguity. While the miracle of catching 153 fish convinced the disciples who He was, there was still some reason for them to ask His identity. His miracle convinced them, but His appearance did not.
So the Risen Jesus, in His glorified Body, was the same person, yet somehow different. He had the same two natures—human and divine—yet He was somehow different. The Resurrection narratives demonstrate some of the ways in which Jesus was different after His rising from the dead: most famously—as we will hear this coming Sunday—the Risen Lord had a physical body that could pass through solid matter.
The point here is that in His Risen Body, Jesus looks different to His disciples. He looks different enough to cause some confusion in their minds: at least enough confusion for them to be tempted to “dare” ask Him “Who are you?” For ourselves, regarding both our meditation and our speaking to the Lord in prayer, we should ask: do we expect the Lord to appear to us in some certain way? How might God want to surprise us in making Himself known to us, and in showing us His love?
Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.
It is only in “the breaking of the bread” that the disciples come to know Jesus, and it is only in this that they become more than disciples. Only in the Eucharist do we share in the Sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross, and become members of Christ’s Body. This is the goal of our lives as Christians: not merely to learn about Jesus, but to enter into His life and saving mission.
On the day of the Resurrection, Jesus is preparing the apostles for the day of His Ascension. After He leaves the earth, it will be up to them to act in His name. First, they must preach penance for the remission of sins, and then suffer inevitably for standing up for what is true.
In all of this, the waves of impact from the news of the Resurrection continue to spread throughout the world that God created, bringing peace to His people on earth and glory to God in the highest. Throughout history and throughout our own lives, it is our calling to continue to be faithful witness to the news of the Resurrection. Yet only Christ’s Holy Spirit can sustain us in offering ourselves for such witness. So for this calling we pray during the Easter season for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in abundance.
But they urged him, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over.”
Easter Monday we heard the chief priests and the elders respond to the news of the Resurrection by covering their tracks with lies. Yesterday, we heard Mary Magdalen respond to Our Risen Lord when He called her by her name. She cried out, “Teacher!” Yet we are called to recognize in Christ much more than simply a teacher.
Today we hear of more events which took place on the day of the Resurrection. The word “disciple” means “one who learns”, and the two disciples of today’s Gospel passage are obviously devoted to learning. Undoubtedly they asked themselves what all these amazing events could mean.
We are told that Jesus joins them in their journey, though the disciples, like Mary Magdalen, do not recognize who He is. Jesus preaches to them the meaning of the Scriptures, which help them learn. These Scriptures help them learn the meaning of what had happened over the previous few days. But still, they do not recognize Jesus.
Only in “the breaking of the bread” do they come to know Jesus, and only in the Eucharist do we Christians become more than disciples. Only by sharing in the Sacrifice of Christ’s Body and Blood can we begin to imitate Him in our lives as He wills.
Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand persons were added that day.
On the day of Pentecost, Peter boldly proclaims to the Jewish people: “Let the whole house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” The response of these Jews is pretty easy to guess. Acts tells us that “when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and they asked Peter and the other Apostles, ‘What are we to do…?’” You can almost imagine what they, in their fear, expect Peter to reply.
But Peter delivers to them Good News: “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the Name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the Gift of the Holy Spirit.”
Acts then tells us that there were two groups in that crowd: there were those who accepted this Good News—some 3,000 persons—and there were those who did not accept this Good News.
Here is the first lesson of the Church’s life and saving mission. Unfortunately, it’s a difficult lesson to put into practice. We need to choose to be in that first crowd, the crowd of 3,000. We need to accept the Good News about the love that God wants to give us. This is the love that Jesus, from the Cross and in the Holy Eucharist, is dying to give us.
Reflections on the Sacred Liturgy 