Easter

7th Week of Easter, Sunday

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In today’s Gospel Our Lord prays not only for the disciples hearing his words during the Last Supper, but for every Christian. He prays for us to be just as united, just as “one” as he and the Father are one, and that is a tall order. We are called to live a unity like the unity of the Trinity, and he actually enables us to participate in that unity, albeit not in the same way as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but a unity that we call communion. Jesus is praying today for us to share a communion of life and love, not just with God, but with each other. And the biggest obstacle to living that communion is us.

The “world” Jesus speaks of today is everything that goes contrary to communion with each other and with God. We live in this environment, and we struggle with it every day. Sometimes the “world” seems more organized, more successful, but Jesus prays that we be consecrated in truth to remember than any illusion of communion between the worldly, more often than not, will vanish when their interests start to diverge. Ultimately it is the difference between selflessness–genuinely caring for others and seeking their good as much as our own–and selfishness–a life of alliances that are made and broken, often at the expense of others and leading us in the end to a friendless existence. Our Lord wants to free us from places, circumstances, and mindsets that are simply worldly, and worldliness is a constant temptation in this life, which is why Our Lord prays for us today to be free of it.

Let’s ask Our Lord today for the grace to conquer a little more of the worldliness in which we live by living a charitable life that is concerned with God and with others.

Readings: Acts 1:15–17, 20a, 20c–26; Psalm 103:1–2, 11–12, 19–20; 1 John 4:11–16; John 17:11b–19.

6th Week of Easter, Friday

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In today’s Gospel Our Lord uses a poignant image to illustrate the interplay between Lent and Easter that every Christian experiences: pregnancy. After a first trimester of congratulations, perhaps “happy hormones,” a glowing complexion, albeit with morning sickness and strange cravings, comes the second trimester of hormonal somersaults as the body strains to support itself and the new life it is helping to shape. The weight of the new life about to be born can be a heavy cross as the joyful day draws near, but all that suffering vanishes, or at least is put into perspective, at the sight of a newborn son or daughter, and not just any newborn: your newborn.

Christian life has moments of enthusiasm, especially when we start to take it seriously, but it also has moments of the weight of the cross, of feeling burdened by adverse emotions and sentiments that make it a struggle to even take one step forward in holiness. Temptations are like strange cravings, only harmful ones, or produce an aversion to living a virtuous life. Just as anyone who looks upon a newborn, even a complete stranger, feels an inner joy upon beholding a new life, so we too in our struggles must consider the Risen Christ and the saints, who promise us that a new life will be born thanks to our efforts and a joy that will never pass away.

Let’s ask Our Lord to help us bear the burden of our crosses today and just take one step further on the path of holiness, confident that it is a step toward the birth of a new and joyful life.

Readings: Acts 18:9–18; Psalm 47:2–7; John 16:20–23.

Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord

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On the Solemnity of the Ascension the Church celebrates Our Lord reaching the finish line. After forty days of being with the disciples after his Resurrection, which we have celebrated during these forty days of the Easter season, Jesus has crossed into Heaven to take His place at the Father’s right hand, as the prophecies foretold for the Messiah. The Father has crowned him with the glory he merited by his Passion, Death, and Resurrection, and in turn he is eternally asking the Father for each of us–by name–to receive the graces we need to join him in eternity.

The disciples thought this was the end of the story. Every Jew in those days knew the Messiah was supposed to clean house and establish a kingdom that would last forever, which is why they asked Jesus right before his departure if he was going to restore the kingdom to Israel. We can think the same thing. Something’s not quite right with the world. There is a despair and decay and violence, and sometimes it seems evil is winning. We want God to come and clean house. We even expect it. Which is why we have to remember Jesus’ answer in the First Reading: “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons.” We can’t blame them. We all want results and tidy endings. They were still in such shock that the angels had to come and tell them, “why are you standing there?”

We’re often so guilty of the same thing because we don’t realize that Christ reaching the finish line doesn’t mean that the race is finished: we still have to cross the finish line. Jesus is just the first runner across. We’re all in a race like an open marathon. Some run it, some walk it, some make it a family outing, but everyone is heading for the finish line. There are runners who train all year long, who’ve been running morning after morning, training for the hardest race of their life, striving to be the first across the finish line. In the race of life these runners are the saints, who suffered and sacrificed and beat their bodies into submission with their eyes fixed on the eternal prize. We all want to have that glory of blowing through the finish line tape. But we know to that there are those who have been longing for it, and at the end, battered, cramped, wheezing, just manage to drag themselves across. In this race getting across the finish line is what counts. The common denominator for all of us is that we have to set our sights on the finish line and keep moving. We shouldn’t wait for angels to come and ask us “why are you standing there?”

As we prepare over these next ten days for the Holy Spirit to be poured out on us on Pentecost Sunday, let’s ask the Spirit to show us that one thing in our lives that is an obstacle to uniting ourselves more closely to God; let’s ask the Spirit to help us pick up the pace in order to blow through the only finish line that really matters: eternity.

Readings: Acts 1:1–11; Psalm 47:2–3, 6–9; Ephesians 1:17–23; Mark 16:15–20. Author note: in some dioceses the Solemnity of the Ascension is celebrated on the Sunday before Pentecost Sunday instead of ten days before Pentecost, which is the traditional day for the solemnity. I have opted to reflect on the liturgy today, and on Sunday I’ll reflect on the Seventh Sunday of Easter.

 

6th Week of Easter, Tuesday

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In today’s Gospel Our Lord describes the Holy Spirit as the Advocate, a legal term that goes well with the language of conviction and judgment that he uses to describe the Holy Spirit’s action in the world and in each one of us. The original Greek word that describes in this passage what the Holy Spirit does (ἐλέγχω) contains multiple meanings; it can mean “to convict,” as today’s Gospel translation puts it, “to convince,” as other translations use, “to rebuke,” or “to expose” something. When we consider all these meanings it gives us a better sense of what Jesus is trying to teach us today about the Holy Spirit.

When we struggle with moral decisions sometimes we don’t realize that we’re not alone in our conscience with just our thoughts and evaluations: the Holy Spirit is there too, and is always trying to shed light on the right thing to do in our hearts, and to inspire us to take the right path in our lives, even in the little day to day decisions we make. Depending on our response we too can say that the Spirit “convicts” us when we choose evil instead of good and “rebukes” us for it, or “convinces” us that we’ve got to do the right thing. The Spirit often “exposes” things about ourselves that we’d rather ignore. In order to make a positive impact on our lives and the lives of those around us we need to work with the Holy Spirit so that instead of being convicted we become convinced of Jesus’ message.

Let’s ask the Holy Spirit to help us resolve any decision we’re struggling with today, and to “convince” us about the right thing to do so that we don’t find ourselves “convicted” due to our actions.

Readings: Acts 16:22–34; Psalm 138:1–3, 7c–8; John 16:5–11.

6th Week of Easter, Monday

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Our Lord warned the disciples, just as he warns us, in today’s Gospel that persecution for being his witness and disciple is part of being Christian. A common belief in modern society is that the two things you don’t bring up in polite conversation are religion and politics. Even today Christians are being put to death, supposedly in the name of God, by radical religious extremists, but Our Lord is clear today that those people have no idea of who God truly is. He reminds the disciples, as he reminds us, that we must testify to him. That means going out into society, into the public square, to speak the truth that he gives us in the Gospel not just for the good of Christianity, but for all of society.

In some cultures today being Christian warrants death, while in others, the death of your reputation. Christians are branded as intolerant, and some of their teachings as hate crimes and offensive, because they question the true good of certain lifestyle and moral choices and suggest a better way. Ideologues want to relegate religious expression of any kind to the private sphere: no public displays of religion, no influence of religion on state or politics. But it’s very hard to be a-religious, because man is meant for God, and it is natural for him to give expression to that need through religion. In the end attempts to be a-religious simply make a religion out of something else–the State, an ideology, individual liberty to the exclusion of anyone else’s, etc. They lash out at anything that would question who God truly is, but as Jesus says today, “They will do this because they have not known either the Father or me.” How will they find out if we do not tell them?

Let’s pray today for persecuted Christians, and also for the strength to not be bullied into leaving our faith in the privacy of our own home, out of the conviction that the Gospel is not just good for us, but good for society.

Readings: Acts 16:11–15; Psalm 149:1b–6a, 9b; John 15:26–16:4a.