Sixth Sunday of Easter

Dominica VI Paschae A
17 May 2020

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments,” says the Lord.  Following the Lord’s commandments carries with it a new promise made by Jesus in his remarks at the Last Supper in today’s Gospel selection.  Jesus teaches that love should drive us to keep his commands.  St. John must have been so captivated by this notion of an interior drive to recognize what a gift God’s commands are, because in his writings he so often highlights that love of God is shown in obedience.  The interior drive of love, as opposed to mere external obligation!  And when our love drives us to be obedient to the Lord, we find a rich promise.  Jesus says, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth.”  Note that Jesus is the first Advocate sent by the Father to be with us.  Now Jesus references another Advocate.  Jesus promises that his departure is important, even necessary and good, because by it he can then ask the Father to send to those who love him the Holy Spirit of truth to be an Advocate or a Paraclete, as is said in other sections of the Gospel.  Whether using the Latin or Greek based words, ‘Advocate’ or ‘Paraclete,’ the meaning is the same.  An advocate is one who is literally called to your side, who stands with you, to advise you, to strengthen you, to guide you, to defend you, to advocate for you.  You can picture this in the legal context in that someone’s legal adviser stands at the side representing him in court.  No surprise then that in some languages the word for “lawyer” shares that root of “advocate,” which you can detect in the Spanish “abogado” and still more clearly in the Italian “avvocato.”  The apostles would receive this promised Holy Spirit to come be with them, at their side, some days later at Pentecost when they were given this Advocate for their mission to the world.

How do we receive the promise Jesus made?  Our first gift of the Spirit of truth happens at our baptism when by rebirth into the family of God we are made temples of the Holy Spirit.  From this, we are given a life that needs to be nurtured and that is intended to grow.  The disciple is by no means finished upon receiving baptism only.  This is clear from the Scriptures, and so following that cue our Catholic practice evidences that there is more expected after baptism.  Among many other ways a disciple needs to grow after baptism, we can note the need to respond to the Lord by deeper love that motivates our obedience.  For our purposes today, I want to focus some attention on a significant way we receive the promised Advocate.  It is so significant that it is its own sacrament.  Let’s look closely at the first reading and marvel at the origin of our Catholic practice.

In the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles (8:5-8, 14-17) we get insight into the activity of the ancient Church, how things looked, and what happened as the apostles and other disciples sought to fulfill the Lord’s command to continue his mission.  In today’s selection we hear about Philip who is one of the deacons we heard about in last Sunday’s first reading.  Philip is in non-Jewish territory preaching and making converts to Christianity and baptizing new disciples.  But notice what happens next.  Acts says, “Now when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent them Peter and John, who went down and prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Spirit, for it had not yet fallen upon any of them; they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.  Then they laid hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit.”  So, what is going on here?  Philip the deacon had been preaching and baptizing with great response and joy in the city.  You can see clearly that there is more to be done than only baptism.  There are two distinct movements we might say.  There is baptism.  But then there is a distinct giving of the Holy Spirit by the laying on of hands.  Why didn’t Philip just lay hands on them?  Why did the Apostles Peter and John have to come all the way from Jerusalem to these new Christians to lay hands on them who had only been baptized?  You see here a distinct and separate bestowal of the Holy Spirit that apparently only the Apostles could do.  And they do it not according to the first way the Holy Spirit is received, that is by immersing a convert in water at baptism (as Philip had done), but by laying hands on them in prayer such that they receive the Holy Spirit.  Friends, what is this?  What do these acts of the apostles show us?  This shows us the ancient origin of what we now call the sacrament of confirmation.

Sometimes people are confused and wonder where confirmation is in the Bible.  Some go so far as to reject confirmation because they do not find that word in the Bible.  Certainly, the word ‘confirmation’ is not there, but the reality of what confirmation is, is indeed in the Bible.  We have it in today’s first reading.  Using the same faulty logic would one deny the “Trinity” because Jesus speaks of the Father and the Holy Spirit and himself as the Son but he does not use the word “Trinity.”  Well, no!  The reality of the Trinity is there, even if the word is not used.  Today’s first reading shows us that there is a special giving of the Holy Spirit that is different than baptism and which is done by different ministers.  Philip was a deacon and could preach and baptize.  But priestly and apostolic ministry was needed to lay hands on a Christian for this second giving of the Holy Spirit.

Confirmation completes the initiation that was begun in baptism.  In fact, reception of confirmation is necessary to complete and to fulfill baptismal grace.  In particular, its reception gives the Holy Spirit so that a Christian has strength to share in the mission of the Church to go out and to proclaim the kingdom, and to make new disciples.  This connection of power for evangelizing mission is one reason why we in the Western Catholic Church (as opposed to the equally valid Eastern Catholic practice) have kept the bestowal of confirmation ordinarily by a bishop.  While a priest has the sacred power to confirm by virtue of priestly ministry in apostolic succession, it is ordinarily a successor of the Apostles who comes to confirm.  However, a bishop may give permission for priests to confirm on his behalf, and priests regularly do so for groups entering the Church, like for those in RCIA.  Priests also confirm in cases of emergency.  Confirmation can often be misunderstood and undervalued.  There can be confusion about the purpose of confirmation when its reception has been moved around from younger to older, and thereby can be mistakenly viewed as some sort of teenage ‘rite of passage’ in faith.  Confirmation is even sometimes skipped altogether.  But let us be clear about the ancient origin and value of confirmation.  It completes our full initiation into Christ and into his Church with shared responsibility for the mission to make disciples.  It is the gift of the promised indwelling of God the Holy Spirit.  It fulfills the promise Jesus made at the Last Supper that if we love him and obey him this promised Advocate comes to us so that we are not orphans or abandoned.  Rather, with the Spirit of truth guiding us and guarding us, standing with us, and comforting us, we can be fully alive in the joy and power of God.  And so, like the joy that filled Samaria at Philip’s work, we too should seek confirmation and seek to live its grace so that we become part of the great chorus we heard in the psalm: “Let all the earth cry out to God with joy.”  What is this joy?  What is this crying out?  It is crying out in joy for the promised works of the Holy Spirit sent by the Father and the Son at Pentecost and received by the baptized faithful to give us evangelizing power as disciples of the Lord!

Fifth Sunday of Easter

Dominica V Paschae A
10 May 2020

The Gospel passage today takes us back to Jesus’ extended remarks to his apostles at the Last Supper where he had predicted Judas’ betrayal, had informed the group that he would be with them only a little while longer (Jn. 13:33), and had predicted that Peter would deny him.  The apostles are stirred up, maybe even confused and hurt.  And so, we can understand why Jesus says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.”

Jesus prepares the Apostles for his departure.  He is preparing them in an immediate sense for his suffering and death, about to take place in the moments after the Last Supper.  But in a larger more remote context he is preparing them for after his resurrection and ascension when he will return to his rightful place in Heaven with the promise to return again in glory.  While Jesus indicates he will go away, his departure is not without a promised return.  We can get this message and thus the reason why Jesus can say, don’t let your hearts be troubled, from the Greek original of this passage for the type of departure Jesus indicates.  The language for Jesus’ “going away” employs the image of Jewish betrothal and wedding ceremonies.  A bride and groom in ancient Jewish practice, once betrothed were legally married and already husband and wife, yet they did not immediately live together.  That’s why if you think with me in a different context, when Joseph plans to leave Mary after discovering she’s pregnant, the angel can appear to him and say “Do not be afraid to take Mary, your wife, into your home.”  Upon betrothal they are already legally married yet not living together.  Upon betrothal the groom would “go away” to prepare a dwelling place for his wife and new family.  He would often do so on familial land, “in his father’s house” in other words.  And once a suitable dwelling place was prepared he would return and a joyful wedding procession would take place to the new home where the bride and groom would begin only then their common life living together.

This is the language employed by Jesus in today’s selection.  Yes, he is going away.  But it is a going away that implies a return, as he himself says.  And his return is intended to gather his faithful to take them to the Father’s house.  The Father’s house, of course, is not a literal house but is Heaven and the life of eternal blessedness.

I hope this doesn’t shock you, but heaven is not here and it will not be here.  Heaven is not even in the Church.  Though indefectible in her spiritual and divine nature, the Church as the visible human community of those called, chosen, and formed to live deeper salvation is not yet heaven.  We in the Church are on a journey, as it were, toward that final joyful procession when Jesus returns as Judge and ushers the faithful into the wedding feast of heaven.  If you need a reminder that heaven is not here and not even in the Church at least in her visible human appearance, consider the first reading where we are plainly shown there were factions and there was complaining among disciples, all vying for their own interests.  [As an aside, as we prepare for limited re-opening and limited entrance to church, let’s have charity so we don’t replicate complaining and factions.]  The Church recognizes that the world and God’s creation is good.  Therefore, to care for it is good.  Therefore, it is good to seek to organize human society in greater conformity to Christ’s command and to his kingdom, such that there is greater justice and authentic flourishing here.  However, the Church’s competence and mission, is not primarily focused on the here and now.  As disciples we can never lose sight of the ultimate goal of Heaven and the proper competence and authority of the Church in spiritual matters of faith and morals.  While you the laity do have the call most directly to be apostles who take Gospel truths into the world, I get worried when the ordained and other leaders in the Church seem more action-driven and motivated by things outside the Church’s competence, matters of the human and political realm.  When the ordained give more attention to secular pursuits or the tactics of grass roots community action I fear the focus has shifted off of heaven and becomes focused on the here and now.  That may carry with it the false notion that we can build a perfect human community here.  That is not the work of the ordained.  Nor is it even realistic.  There will also be sin and imperfection here.  Heaven is our ultimate goal.  It is the place to which we strive.  There will be perfection and eternal blessedness.

Not only is Heaven not here.  It also is not a place, in the sense of some location or geography.  Look again at the Gospel.  When Jesus discusses his going away and the preparation of a dwelling for his faithful it becomes clear what this dwelling is: he will come to take you to himself so that you can be with him.  And where will that be or what will that be?  It becomes clear when Thomas says, “we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?”  Jesus’ response is not about a physical place.  Rather, it is clear he is speaking about heaven as the life of the Trinity.  Sharing in the life of the Blessed Trinity, having the unveiled vision of God, is the experience of Heaven.  Jesus says that our procession to the eternal dwelling is to come to the Father.  He says, “I am in the Father and the Father is in me.”  It is clear that his listeners get that Jesus is not speaking of heavenly buildings but of the Trinity because Philip asks boldly, “show us the Father.”

Friends, while Heaven is not this life here, the Good News is that we can begin to experience the life of the Blessed Trinity even now.  When we pray and give ourselves to God in prayer, we are opening ourselves to real relationship with a real personal being who is God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  God responds and places His life and love within us.  The sacramental life is still a deeper experience of Godly relationship. These are foretastes of heavenly life.  We become temples of the Holy Spirit of God.  We are given impulse by the very power of God and so we can understand those odd sounding words at the end of the Gospel: “whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these.”  Those greater works are the works guaranteed by the Holy Spirit that have eternal consequences, building not only a society here but most especially building and saving souls for the eternal communion with God in Heaven.

With confidence that the Lord does not abandon us but sends his Holy Spirit may you whose vocation is the lay state seek to be living stones to build a world in greater conformity to Christ, recognizing that you are “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation.”  May we each together seek to live deeper communion with God in prayer and sacramental life now so that we are prepared for the day when the Lord will come to take us to the full heavenly vision of life with the Blessed Trinity in Heaven.

Fourth Sunday of Easter

Dominica IV Paschae A
3 May 2020
Good Shepherd Sunday

 The Fourth Sunday of Easter is typically called “Good Shepherd Sunday.”  Yesterday the Church observed the feast day of one great shepherd, the feast of the bishop St. Athanasius who lived in the 300s.  St. Athanasius was one of the great bishops from the earliest centuries of faith life in the Catholic Church.  At the age of only twenty-one he had already written a great work titled “On the Incarnation,” expounding on the truth that the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the Eternal Son of God, had condescended and lowered Himself to take on flesh in the womb of Blessed Mary and so come to us as God incarnate, God in our flesh.

I want to focus our attention on one implication of the mystery of the Incarnation that St. Athanasius explained and defended, and then apply that to our time, especially in view of a hoped-for return to some greater normalcy in our sacramental life.  Listen to St. Athanasius’ words, “The Word of God, incorporeal, incorruptible and immaterial, entered our world.  Yet it was not as if he had been remote from it up to that time.  For there is no part of the world that was ever without his presence; together with his Father, he continually filled all things and places.  Out of his loving-kindness for us he came to us, and we see this in the way he revealed himself openly to us.  Taking pity on mankind’s weakness, and moved by our corruption, he could not stand aside and see death have the mastery over us; he did not want creation to perish and his Father’s work in fashioning man to be in vain” (On the Incarnation, Office of Readings, May 2).  One implication of the Incarnation, the truth that the Eternal Son of God took on our flesh in the womb of Blessed Mary, is that God desired to be and came close to us.  He came like one of us in all things but sin.  He came within our very flesh and our frame to be near to us.

This has an application for the practice of our faith life as Catholics.  You see, God is not to be viewed simply as a concept.  His interaction with us is not only spiritual but direct, personal, and physical.  He is incarnate.  He comes near to us.  And so, His grace and power and blessing are enfleshed too, here and now.  We are meant to have a relationship with God that is personal and direct.  I point this out because I wonder about a possible ramification of this time of quarantine.  What will happen when we begin to return to normal?  Will we find that some of our Catholic brothers and sisters, perhaps not well-formed, will have become too accustomed to live stream Masses?  Too accustomed to the illusion of participating in Mass through a camera?  Such practice for us is permitted now because there is little more we can do.  And to be clear, that’s okay for now.  But, when we can do more and live more normally, will we find that some have disappeared somewhere beyond the camera?  It’s a different matter for a Protestant brother or sister, especially who attends a megachurch, to return to “normal” where the normal pattern may well be watching a pastor on a TV screen.  But what should return to “normal” look like for a Catholic?  Please God all of our brothers and sisters in the Catholic fold will return, but we need to prepare ourselves to be true Catholics and witnesses to them, to be St. Athanasius’ to them, to proclaim the truth clearly and convincingly as he did that God has come near in the Incarnation and that no artificial distance, or the illusion of digital proximity, can suffice for an authentic life with our Good Shepherd.  We need to also prepare ourselves to be witnesses who bring non-Catholics nearer and into the fold.

What are the lessons of the Incarnation?  Jesus, the Son of God in the flesh, is the one who comes near such that the woman with the hemorrhage can reach out and grasp his cloak.  This is the God who spits on the ground, making mud with the dirt, and smears it on the blind man’s eyes to heal him.  This is the God who desires proximity and direct, personal contact such that he confronts lack of belief by demanding, put your finger in the nail marks and place your hand in my side, and believe.  God is not merely and cannot remain merely a concept.  He is to be encountered in a direct and personal way.  Through a video lens or on a screen is not the norm and will not suffice under normal conditions.  People experience God in many and varied ways, to be sure.  By His power He is and can be present spiritually with us and, as we say, in our hearts, especially when we foster prayer life.  This is true.  But what a greater treasure do we have as Catholics… by the Incarnation God comes near to us directly and personally and this is the heart of a proper sacramental life!  How strange it is that we Catholics are sometimes accused of having a distant faith or a faith that is only about rules.  That’s only true if you remain distant and close God off to the reality of your life in all its episodes, in all its joys and struggles, and even in the darkness of sins.  How strange it would be then, again under normal conditions when we are more free to live a sacramental life, that a Catholic would keep a distance from the Lord.  God’s grace in you was begun by direct gift that comes from his personal offering on the Cross and the physical, close, pouring of water for rebirth in the Spirit.  That new life is strengthened by the direct and personal anointing of confirmation such that you become a temple of the Holy Spirit and decorated as a solider of Christ.  The Lord gives himself most intimately in his resurrected and living flesh in Holy Communion, nourishing you to keep on the path of intimacy with him.  Even in our sins, darkness, and struggles he is near to save us.  How strange it is then that a Catholic would keep a distance from this merciful work of the incarnate God in confession and choose instead to live at greater distance and to wallow in indignity.  God has come near, within our very flesh!  He desires and makes intimacy with Him possible.

That God comes in our flesh as the fulfillment of the shepherd King in the line of David gives us an image of God’s closeness.  God’s work is continued in our time by the proximity of ordained shepherds in our midst.  In the Gospel Jesus proclaims himself to be the gate for the sheep.  And he says that whoever enters through the gate (through him) is the shepherd of the sheep.  That is an instruction especially to priests that we must have a deep interior life with Jesus.  We must live in, and minister through the gate, through Jesus, if we will truly fulfill the calling to be shepherds in his name.  And listen to the clear and unique Gospel imagery for how shepherds lead, which will give particular force to the Church’s ancient liturgical practice that you can see and may have noticed here at the altar: From the sheepfold, “the shepherd calls his own sheep by name and leads them out…. he walks ahead of them, and the sheep follow him.”  Standing at the sacred altar, ahead of you, but on the same side of the altar with you truly signifies our journey, our procession in this life: a shepherd walks ahead of you to lead, but also on the same side of the altar with you since he is also one of the Lord’s flock.  The shepherd seeks to keep his gaze and the gaze of the flock entrusted temporarily to him, not on himself, but on the signs in the cosmos that the Lord is returning to meet us in judgment.  Both shepherd and flock have focus for the journey of the spiritual life by focusing on the horizon whence we await the return in glory of our Good Shepherd incarnate still in our flesh!

On this Good Shepherd Sunday I ask your prayers for me, for Fr. Bali, and for Fr. Mejia as we seek to care for and to lead the flock here at our parish.  I ask for your prayers for our Archbishop, who has important decisions to announce soon about how and under what conditions we will seek to return to a more normal sacramental life.  By extension I ask you to pray for our deacons.  And I ask you to pray for future priests and express to God a willingness to welcome and to promote from among your own sons whatever is God’s will, should He call one or more of them to be future priests.