Month: May 2016

6th Week of Easter, Friday (2)

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In today’s Gospel Our Lord describes what will happen after his Ascension, which is our situation right now. He will return. When he returns, what will happen? It’s his Last Supper with his most loved disciples, away from the crowds. He’s taught them about the Last Judgement, about his return in glory, about the end of history. Today he describes what it’ll be like for those who have persevered as his friends: a joy without end, and all questions answered.

He does not promise joy or understanding from the beginning; throughout the Last Supper discourse in John’s Gospel, which we’ve considered during the weekday readings of the Easter season, the disciples still don’t entirely understand what he is trying to tell them, because they have not been sent the Holy Spirit yet to help them, a moment we remember liturgically in these days between Ascension and Pentecost. Even today we struggle and don’t understand all the designs of God, but Our Lord has promised us that when he returns those struggles and those questions will end.

Take a moment today to imagine when Our Lord returns. What difficulties do you want to end? What burning questions do you want answered? He doesn’t tell us to wait until his return to ask for what we need to remain his friends. Ask.

Readings: Acts 18:9–18; Psalm 47:2–7; John 16:20–23. See also 6th Week of Easter, Friday.

Ascension of the Lord, Cycle C

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After a period of forty days, commemorated by the 40 days of the Easter season, the Risen Lord ascends into Heaven today and invites his disciples to look toward the future and to look toward the mission he has entrusted to them. He’s promised to send them the Holy Spirit in order to help them fulfill their mission, and now we too begin our wait for Pentecost after living the joy of the Risen Lord during the Easter season.

We rejoice because those disciples, asked to be witnesses to the “ends of the earth” reached our end of the earth too. Our Lord has taken his place at the right hand of the Father and even now watches over us from Heaven and intercedes for us as we continue the disciples’ mission to give witness to him to the ends of the earth. We too must preach with joy, as the Lord commands in today’s Gospel, repentance for the forgiveness of sins in Christ’s name. For the disciples it started in Jerusalem; for us it starts in our homes, our schools, our society, and there are still many people who’ve not heard our testimony or the testimony of any other believer.

The ten day’s wait for Pentecost has begun. Let’s pray in these days to see where we should give witness so that on Pentecost Sunday we too are “clothed” with the power we need to extend the Gospel with joy to the ends of the earth.

Readings: Acts 1:1–11; Psalm 47:2–3, 6–9; Ephesians 1:17–23; Luke 24:46–53. See also Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord.

6th Week of Easter, Wednesday (2)

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Paul in today’s First Reading has gotten one of the biggest missionary opportunities of his lifetime: preaching the Gospel in the Areopagus, the famed public square of the city of Athens where the learned gathered to hear philosophy and great ideas. Athens was at the heart of Greek culture and if Paul had success here in evangelization, it could ensure a much wider audience for the Gospel message, a much as getting “rave reviews” or “media attention” would do today in cities known to be nexus for culture such as New York, London, Berlin, etc.

Athenians prided themselves on being very rational regarding matters of religion; at one point they even dismissed their pantheon of gods whose myths were part of their upbringing. It was fashionable to be skeptical of them, yet they didn’t push it too far, which is why, as Paul notes today, they had many altars to many gods, not seeking to offend any one of them, just in case he, she, or it really was real. Rationalism and superstition sometimes go hand in hand, because the more we stoke our reason, to more something inside us gives us that nagging feeling that there’s something beyond our reasons, calling to us.

As Paul notes, they even had an altar dedicated to an unknown god, and Paul makes that an opportunity to not only introduce them to the God of which they’re ignorant, but to understand that he goes way beyond any gods they had conceived. Even as Paul, in his discourse, rationally discards the falsity of idol worship, he tries to connect the God of which he preaches to the God that rationally they were seeking. The thought of the resurrection of the dead, however, proves too irrational for most of them. As a result, we don’t have a Letter to the Athenians among Paul’s letters; the shift from rationality to testimony was too much for them. Eventually, however, Greek culture would become an incredible vehicle for transmitting the Gospel, greatly influencing all the Eastern Churches, so Paul’s work was not in vain.

There are many Areopagi in the world today, under different management, moved to new locations, where people are seeking the answers to life’s questions and don’t know that the answer is God, much less Christ. Like Paul, let’s try meeting them halfway along the rational road and bring them to meet the Risen Christ, the answer to life’s meaning that they’re seeking.

Readings: Acts 17:15, 22–18:1; Psalm 148:1–2, 11–14; John 16:12–15. See 6th Week of Easter, Wednesday.

Sts. Philip and James, Apostles

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Today we celebrate two of the Twelve Apostles, chosen by Our Lord and entrusted with the mission of being witnesses to him, especially his Resurrection, as today’s First Reading reminds us. Today we celebrate James, the son of Alphaeus, sometimes known as James the Lesser, as opposed to James, the son of Zebedee and brother of John the Evangelist, known as James the Greater. In today’s First Reading it makes specific mention of James, apart from the Twelve. It’s not clear which James is being referred to here, but it is clear that James is being named as an Apostle who received the grace of seeing the Risen Lord, to whom he may also have been related (see Galatians 1:19, Matthew 13:55).

Philip, as the Gospel reminds us today, needed a little time to process what Our Lord was trying to teach regarding the Holy Trinity; Jesus told him, “Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.” He didn’t yet grasp that seeing Our Lord was also seeing the Father; he was seeing God, and Son and Father, along with the Holy Spirit, is God.

There are two Philips found in the New Testament. There are two James, possibly three found throughout the New Testament, and two of them are Apostles. It’s not important to keep track, of who’s who, but to remember that each Apostle should rejoice, as Our Lord taught, because their “names are written in Heaven” (Luke 10:20). Let’s pray today that through their intercession and inspired by their witness that our names will be written in Heaven as well.

Readings: 1 Corinthians 15:1–8; Psalm 19:2–5; John 14:6–14. See also 4th Week of Easter, Friday.

6th Week of Easter, Monday (2)

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In today’s First Reading Paul arrives in Philippi, his first missionary stop in Europe after spending time evangelizing Asia Minor. In Saturday‘s First Reading we saw the Spirit urging Paul to head to Macedonia, and Philippi is the biggest city in that district. The culture is no longer predominantly Jewish; in Paul’s time, when there weren’t enough Jewish families to found a synagogue, the Jews of the town would go to pray in a spot outside of it instead, which is why Paul goes to the most likely spot today where Jews would gather in order to share the Gospel with them.

Luke recalls this momentous occasion because Paul does find people there who believe and are baptized. We know that a thriving Christian community begins there, which is why Paul sends them a letter that we still have today in the canon of Scripture: the Letter to the Philippians.

The Holy Spirit sent Paul to Philippi, and also prepared those living there to welcome the Gospel preached by Paul. The Spirit was able to use Paul’s astuteness and Lydia’s faith to found a Christian community. Let’s ask the Spirit today how we can use our talents to help spread the Gospel.

Readings: Acts 16:11–15; Psalm 149:1b–6a, 9b; John 15:26–16:4a. See also 6th Week of Easter, Monday.