Let nothing disturb you,
Let nothing frighten you,
All things are passing away:
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things
Whoever has God lacks nothing;
God alone suffices.
~ St. Teresa of Avila
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Homily: 6th Sunday in Easter – Cycle A
I don’t know if any of you have
noticed, but Easter season is getting real.
We are at the sixth Sunday of Easter, which means we’ve completed five
full weeks of Easter already and we have only two full weeks before the feast
of Pentecost. This means that our
readings have begun to shift their focus away from the event of the Resurrection
and towards the coming of the Holy Spirit.
We have not yet celebrated the feast of the Ascension, nevertheless all
three readings from today’s Mass speak of the Holy Spirit.
In the Gospel reading, Jesus is talking
about significant mystical realities. He
is talking about sending the Holy Spirit upon his disciples, the Spirit who
will remain in them and be in them. He
is talking about his death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven, but that
he will, nonetheless, come back to them and remain in them, even though he is
in the Father and the Father is in him. As
we hear these things and consider them, we need to stop and ask ourselves this
question: “How does my religious sense react to this?”
Now, if you’re anything like me, your
first reaction to hearing all of this might be one of confusion. “I’m not really sure what Jesus is talking
about here”, you might think to yourself.
If so, that’s okay, the challenge here is to engage the confusion and to
try to resolve it, rather than passing it off and moving on to the next
thing. In order to engage our confusion
we need to acknowledge the thing that I’ve already mentioned—that these are
significant mystical realities—and then ask ourselves this question: “Do I ever
spend time thinking about what is beyond this world?”
My friends, it’s really important that
we ask ourselves this question because the great danger in Christianity is that
we would see it only as a tool (an excellent tool, even) to get the most
happiness out of this world. In other
words, it’s dangerous to believe that keeping Jesus’ commandments is nothing
more than a complex good-luck charm that will keep us out of harm’s way so that
we might avoid suffering. First and
foremost, it’s dangerous because it’s simply not true! Christians continue to be the most persecuted
persons throughout the world, so following Jesus’ commandments is obviously not
a fool-proof way to stay out of trouble in the world. Second, however, it’s dangerous because it
ignores the great mystical reality that it is meant to open for us—a reality
that doesn’t seem possible: that is, that we can enjoy communion with God on a
completely different plane of existence, which is the source of our hope in a world
of turmoil. Thus, to ignore this reality
is to risk losing hope.
Christians who do not ignore this
great mystical reality that loving Jesus opens up for us live life differently,
right? These Christians live life as
persons who have an incomprehensible hope: a supernatural gift that allows them
to stand firm even when the turmoil of the world is directed squarely at
them. The first apostles lived like this
and, thus, drew many people to know and love Jesus. In our first reading, we heard how Philip,
who had been driven out of Jerusalem by the first persecution, had gone to
Samaria and proclaimed Christ. Many were
drawn to him and he worked many miracles in Jesus’ name. When the turmoil of the world was directed at
him, Philip remained aware of the mystical reality that Jesus was in him and he
was in Jesus and so could continue to proclaim Christ—and, thus, fill others
with that same supernatural hope—in spite of the danger.
This is a gift that our recently
departed seminarian Will has. After
spending nearly three months with him, I was amazed that nothing really seemed
to faze him. He has a firm grasp on this
supernatural hope that stems from the mystical reality that he is in Jesus and
that Jesus is in him and he simply refuses to be affected negatively by the
turmoil of the world. His demeanor was
so authentic, yet so appealing, that I considered writing in the card that I
got him to wish him blessings for the future that line that we write in
yearbooks when we don’t know what to write, but want to write something nice: “Don’t
ever change.” Except I would have meant
it! I don’t want him to change, because
he is a witness to us of how we should be in the world: engaged, steadfast in
hope, and secure in Christ.
Friends, when we do this, people will
be drawn to us because they will want to know: “What is the reason for your
hope?” and when they approach us it will be an opportunity to proclaim Christ;
and the world is desperately in need of men and women who proclaim Christ: that
is, men and women who give witness to the mystical reality of communion with
God that Jesus has made available to us—the mystical reality that we are in
Jesus and that Jesus is in us—a reality that makes it possible to live
steadfast in hope of a life of peace and harmony in the face of a world full of
turmoil and strife.
My friends, the feast of Pentecost is
coming soon: the feast in which we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit,
whom Jesus promised to send. In
preparation for this feast, we should prepare to renew our commitment to living
our lives “in the Spirit”. We do this by
staying aware of the things beyond this world: the mystical realities in which
we participate because we have been united to the Father, through Jesus, in
baptism. In doing so we will become the
witnesses to hope that our world and community so desperately need and we will
find the grace to remain peaceful in the midst of the world’s turmoil.
Let us, then, take up this good work
to prepare prayerfully over these next couple of weeks to celebrate this great
feast; so that, with hearts full of the power of the Holy Spirit, we might draw
all of those around us into this great mystical reality: the communion with God
that we receive here in this Eucharist.
Given
at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – May 21st, 2017
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