Monday of the Seventh Week of Easter Acts 19:1-8 + John 16:29-33
“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.
Saturday of the Sixth Week of Easter Acts 18:23-28 + John 16:23-28
“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
“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.
PLEASE NOTE: In some dioceses, on the Seventh Sunday of Easter the Ascension is celebrated. For the reflection for the Ascension, click HERE.
The Seventh Sunday of Easter [C] Acts 7:55-60 + Revelation 22:12-14,16-17,20 + John 17:20-26
“And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one ….”
We ought to cry out for the Holy Spirit to come into our lives each day. There are many reasons for us to do so.
One of these reasons has to do with our sinful human nature. Our sins pierce our souls as they pierced the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and so our souls can become like sieves, unable to contain the grace of the Holy Spirit’s Presence and His seven gifts. Our Christian life poses to us the struggle of allowing our souls to be re-created throughout our earthly lives. This is the grace of being reconciled with God that we receive in the Sacrament of Penance. This is what being “born again” means for us as Catholics: first of all, being washed clean of all our sins in Baptism, and from there on out being renewed in our relationship with God through the Sacrament of Confession.
There are some who claim that believing in a Sacrament such as Reconciliation somehow cheapens the meaning of our Christian faith. They argue that being able to go to Confession over and over again encourages people to sin. Of course, this makes about as much sense as saying that being able to take a shower every day encourages people to get dirty and stink.
How can we understand the argument of those who describe the Sacrament of Confession as an easy way out of sinning? After all, what are the alternatives? If God didn’t truly establish the Sacrament of Reconciliation, there are only three basic alternatives: first, that there’s no such thing as sin; second, that there is sin, but that as long as we have at some point accepted Christ as our personal Savior, our sins don’t matter because we are already saved; or thirdly, that there is sin, and when a Christian sins he or she needs to turn to God for forgiveness, but that nonetheless this forgiveness can be obtained simply by praying to God. When you put these three alternatives up against the Catholic’s need to confess mortal sins through the Sacrament of Confession, it hardly seems to make sense to say that Catholic have an easy way out. On the contrary, it would be much easier for us as Catholics to believe in one of these three alternatives.
Furthermore, we can also look at our relationship with God from a personal perspective, and see again the meaning and value of the Sacrament of Reconciliation with God. If you were to consider the most intimate relationships that you have in your life—whether with a spouse, parents, children, or friends—you could ask yourself in what manner you seek to be reconciled with those persons when you have offended them in a serious way.
We might consider several alternatives. First, we could pretend that we had never harmed the other, that we have no need to ask forgiveness. At times perhaps we do act this way, but we know it’s not honest.
Second, we could admit that we had harmed the other, but then claim that as long as we had professed our love for the other at some point in the past, that they will automatically forgive us without our asking. At times perhaps we do act this way, but we know that it’s presumptuous.
Third, we could admit that we had harmed the other, and know that we need to ask for forgiveness, but then seek this forgiveness in roundabout ways: for example, through flowers, a card, or some act of kindness for the other. These are all good things, and can lead up to forgiveness, but until a person breaks down, gets on his knees, and opens his mouth and says out loud, “O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended you,” they cannot, even from a merely human point of view, receive the full joy of being forgiven and being able to go on to have an even stronger relationship with God.
If we seek the Presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives, and accept the full measure of His gifts, Jesus’ Spirit becomes our spirit. His breath becomes our breath. And so, in turn, we will offer our lives as Saint Stephen did. We will offer our own spirit to God, and in the same breath, pray for others, even those who have trespassed against us. This emptying of ourselves for God and others is our calling as Christians.
PLEASE NOTE: In some dioceses, the Ascension is celebrated on the Thursday that is the fortieth day of Eastertide instead of being celebrated on the Seventh Sunday of Easter. This year’s reflection for the Seventh Sunday of Easter is found HERE.
The Ascension of the Lord [C] Acts 1:1-11 + Ephesians 1:17-23 + Luke 24:46-53
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses ….”
The Church reflects upon the Glorious Mystery of the Ascension through her Sacred Liturgy. She does this first through the Scriptures, prayers and antiphons of today’s Mass. These include the Preface that the priest chants or recites right before the Sanctus. There are two prefaces for the Ascension. In the first, the priest professes our belief—that is to say, the belief of the entire Communion of Saints—that “the Lord Jesus, the King of glory, / conqueror of sin and death, / ascended today to the highest heavens” “not to distance Himself from our lowly state / but that we, His members, might be confident of following / where He, our Head and Founder, has gone before.”
That preface makes it clear to us that the Church’s celebration of Jesus’ Ascension is about the virtue of hope. It’s about you and me and every other member of the Church on earth living the virtue of hope in our daily lives: at home, at work, and among our family and friends.
Hoping for Heaven is challenging because for most of us, Heaven is still a long ways down the road. After all, on the practical level, for most of you, your “tomorrow” is going to look pretty much like your “today”. Regarding your hopes for “tomorrow”, you likely hope for sunny skies and 72°. You likely hope for your investments to show at least a modest gain, or your boss to give you a raise, or your grown child to call to see how you’re doing, or your husband to take you by the hand, look into your eyes and say, “I love you. Thank you for being such a wonderful mother to our children.” All of these are perfectly natural things to hope for.
But we tend not to hope for Heaven tomorrow. That is to say, unless you are in the last years of life upon this green earth, there are probably a whole lot of tomorrows left to you between “today” and the end of your road. So practically, we put our hope in things that lay closer to hand. As a result, Heaven becomes not so much an object of hope, as a vague and fuzzy ideal far, far off on the horizon.
But our Blessed Mother Mary can help us to hope more realistically. We have honored her throughout the month of May because she, more than any other disciple of Jesus, can show us and help us to place our hope each day in her Son: her Son Jesus, who is the Way of true hope for your daily life.
When you pray the Rosary on Tuesdays and Fridays, imagine the Crucifixion from Mary’s point of view. When Jesus was hanging on the Cross, He spoke to few persons, but Mary was one of them. “Woman, behold your son”, Jesus said, nodding his crowned head towards St. John, the Beloved Disciple [John 19:26]. After Jesus’ Ascension, Mary gathered with the Apostles in the Upper Room where Jesus had given the Eucharist at the Last Supper. But why was Mary there? Why was Mary still on this earth? Wasn’t her vocation over? Wasn’t she just—so to speak—treading water until her Assumption? Of course not.
In Mary’s earthly life, she lived for others, not for herself. She lived with the hope that St. Paul wrote about to the Christians in Philippi. We can imagine Mary pondering the Mystery of her Son, and saying in her heart, “I am caught between the two. I long to depart this life and be with Christ, (for) that is far better. Yet that I remain (in) the flesh is more necessary for your benefit” [Philippians 1:23-24]. When St. Paul wrote those words, “your benefit” meant the benefit of the Philippians. But we might ask: for Mary, for whose benefit would she have meant these words?
Mary is the Mother of the entire Church. Mary is your own mother, also, since you are one member of her Son’s Mystical Body. She is “our life, our sweetness, and our hope”, because she gathers with us as she did with the Apostles after her Son’s Ascension. During these days leading up to Pentecost, we pray for the power of the Holy Spirit in order to give faithful witness to Jesus in this world.
PLEASE NOTE: In some dioceses, on Thursday of the Sixth Week of Easter the Ascension of the Lord is celebrated.
Thursday of the Sixth Week of Easter Acts 18:1-8 + John 16:16-20
“… 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. Yet in His divinity, Jesus also knew of His impending Ascension as well as the Descent of the Holy Spirit, so He is also speaking here about His Ascension and Pentecost.
Much of the world today celebrates 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.
Wednesday of the Sixth Week of Easter Acts 17:15,22—18:1 + John 16:12-15
“… when He comes, the Spirit of truth, He will guide you to all truth.”
St. John Henry 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 the 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
“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
“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.
Reflections on the Sacred Liturgy 