It's past time to do the right thing

Depending on who I listen to, as a white, male clergy member, now is either the time for me to speak up or to shut-up. This does not bother me. I understand why people of color would have these very different responses to what to what is going on here in the United States right now. For the most part, I am simply trying to listen. I'll be honest, I don't like everything I hear. That's okay.

Listening is difficult and requires effort. Some of the things I hear that I don't like I need to hear. But there are some things that I think are wrong and untenable. I think I understand why some people want to go to extremes. In any case, I am prone to err on the side of believing silence is complicity.

While hatred is an ever-present reality, I mustn't mistake understandable anger and resentment for hatred. I am not new to anti-racism. While I am open to new and constructive ways to engage, I am neither looking askance at what to do nor expecting kudos for doing what my humanity and Christianity require of me at this moment. What I see right now is an opportunity for change, for genuine reform, and forming a more perfect union.

As U.S. history demonstrates, especially when it comes to race and racism (the United States of America's original sin), this change only comes about through struggle. However, the struggle that brings about change, while revolutionary, is not a violent overthrow: one bloody civil war is enough. Now, some might read that as a hidden way of defending an unjust system. No human system is perfectly just. I think the United States, constitutionally, has the resources to remedy the injustices that people are rightly protesting.

Movements for positive change require moral leadership and sound principles. While in the eyes of some I might be overstepping my bounds, as a Christian, I think non-violence, which is not passivity, works best when dealing with brutal, violent structures. One reason is obvious: non-violence brings into bold relief the brutality and violence of oppressive structures. Non-violence requires commitment, discipline, and willingness to sacrifice. Non-violent protest is not, as some on the right insist, virtue signaling. Non-violent protest is also inclusive of anyone who wants to participate.

While effective movements for change require moral leadership, it requires moral leadership on the other side, too, for change to happen. What I fear right now is that the lack of moral leadership at the national level will only add fuel to fire of resistance, thus enabling advocates of violence to prevail. After three-and-a-half years of race-baiting and racist dog-whistling, it's easy to see why many people are not hopeful about positive change.

I will admit that earlier this year, before any of the events of the past several months, I flirted with the idea of not voting. While I will not publicly make partisan endorsements, my political commitments are not hidden or vague. Given the politics of the state in which I live, I also toyed with the idea of voting for a third-party candidate. I did this in 2016.

Given that hindsight is 20/20, I still go back and forth over my 2016 voting decision. At this point, I am forced to admit that if I could go back and vote with foresight, I would vote differently. It is important for me to state unequivocally that I will vote this November. I urge everyone who reads this to do the same. Rather, than vote to show my disdain for what our two-party system has become and/or to keep a pristine conscience, I will vote to ensure that our country can return to some kind of normalcy. Nonetheless, I still firmly believe that how our nation came to be where it's at now is by consistently being forced by our two major parties to choose the lesser of two evils. Both sides are committed to a common baseline of things that need to change.

At present, the nation is being divided on purpose. It is a political strategy. This strategy is not aimed at building a majority. Rather, as in 2016, maintaining a ruling minority. To this end, our president is intent to rouse the demons in our souls instead of summoning what President Lincoln termed, in his First Inaugural Address, "the better angels of our nature."

In terms of George Floyd's death, in addition to my Pentecost homily, I feel I need to state that all lives can't matter until Black Lives Matter. It's the same the world over. Take Israel, where those formerly oppressed (and currently oppressed; antisemitism, even in the U.S., is real) have become the oppressors. In that context, all lives can't matter until Palestinian Lives Matter.

True, when it comes to life, liberty, and human flourishing, no group of people ought to matter more than any other group. It's a contradiction, some might say, to insist that no group of people ought to matter more than another only to turn around and assert Black Lives Matter. In reality, right now, white people in the U.S. matter more than black people. We need to do the very hard and painstaking work of making black lives matter. Until we do this all lives don't matter.

Making Black Lives Matter is not simply a function of time. It requires focus and persistent effort at every level of government. When it comes to the lasting legacy of chattel slavery in the United States, time clearly has not healed the wound. Lately, the scar has been torn from the wound and dirt has been thrown in it.

The 8 minutes and 46 seconds that white officer Derek Chauvin had his full body weight on the neck of George Floyd stands both as evidence for and a powerful symbol of this sad, sick state-of-affairs. To paraphrase Orwell from 1984: I shudder to envision a future in which a white police officer forever kneels on a black man's neck while the black man says, "I can't breathe."

Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church

Readings: Acts: 1:12-14; Ps 87:1-3.5-7; John 19:25-34

Two years ago, in 2018, Pope Francis officially added today’s memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church, to the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar. It seems most fitting that we honor our Blessed Mother as Mater Ecclesiae- Mother of the Church- the day after we celebrate the Church’s birthday: Pentecost. Of course, May is a month devoted to Mother Mary. So, at least this year, by observing this lovely memorial on the first day of June, which is typically the memorial of Saint Justin Martyr, we are extending our month-long devotion to our Blessed Mother.

It’s easy to miss Mary’s centrality in the early chapters of the Acts of the Apostles. In our reading from Acts today, we learn that after Jesus’s Ascension into heaven, along with the remaining eleven apostles, Mary and some of Jesus’s other close relatives returned to the place they were staying in Jerusalem.

Because our first reading is from the first chapter of Acts, Pentecost has not yet happened. As Mary, the apostles, and others of Jesus’s followers await the fulfillment of Jesus’s promise to send the Holy Spirit, the inspired author of Acts, who also wrote Luke, tells us that they “devoted themselves with one accord to prayer.” (Acts 1:14).

Just as important as their devotion to prayer is that they prayed “with one accord.” As we gather for Mass today, that is what we’re meant to do: pray together with one accord. Right now our world, our country, and our community are in need of our prayers. Each day seems to bring some new crisis or catastrophe.

Over the past five months, we’ve suffered through earthquakes, a pandemic, and now rioting in the streets prompted by the injustice that makes many people feel powerless. The fact that the racial divide in our country has become more pronounced over the past several years has been brought into bold relief over the past week. Our nation needs healing. And let's not forget the on-going troubles the Church faces due largely due to her past failures, which have greatly compromised her witness and moral authority. Prayer for justice and for healing is an act of hope. As Christians, we are hopeful people.

Too often, we dismiss the power of prayer. Prayer is powerful and necessary. Given how many means we have at our disposal for prayer, we should all come to know firsthand the efficacy of prayer. One of the most powerful means of prayer we possess is the Most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Beyond that, we also have the Angelus, which, as we return to Ordinary Time, by centuries’ long custom, we are urged to pray morning, noon, and evening. We also have the Regina Caeli, which takes the place of the Angelus during Eastertime, as well as the Memorare, suitable for praying whenever anyone asks us to pray for a particular intention.

We can trust in the intercession of Mary because she is the Mother of the Church. Our Gospel reading this evening is precisely where Mary is made Mother of the Church. The disciple whom Jesus loved stands in place of the Church. Through our rebirth in Baptism, we become children of God the Father as well as daughters and sons of Mary.

Given that our Blessed Mother is in every way the model Christian disciple, we can be assured of her maternal care for us. In my homily for New Year’s Day this year, which day is the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God and the World Day of Peace, I challenged everyone in our parish to commit to praying a Rosary every day of this year. Because 2020 is a Leap Year that worked out to 366 Rosaries. I tried to be clear that by praying the Rosary I meant praying one set of mysteries each day- five decades.

As I was thinking about 2020 being a Leap Year, I thought, “The last thing this year needs is an extra day.” Given that we can’t take away the extra day and award it to 2021, let’s make the most of it by devoting ourselves to praying the Rosary each day for the remaining 214 days of this year with one accord. Don't worry about whether or not you feel like praying. Be honest. If you left prayer to when you felt like it, how often would you pray?

Along with fasting and alms-giving, prayer is one of the fundamental spiritual disciplines of Christian life. For the Christian praying is as necessary as breathing (Romano Guardini, The Art of Praying, 6). In addition to the Rosary, I urge you to undertake the discipline of praying the Angelus three-times daily- morning, noon, and night. Heaven knows there are plenty of petitions we can entrust to the intercession of our Blessed Mother.

Holy Mary, Mother of the Church, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.

Pentecost

Readings: Acts 2:1-11; Ps 104:1.24.29-30.31.34; 1 Cor 12:3b-7.12-13; John 20:19-23

After Easter, Pentecost is the most important observance of the liturgical year. Since it brings people from different places, languages, and cultures together, Pentecost has traditionally been viewed as the Holy Spirit’s undoing the confounding of languages and the resultant separation of peoples at Babel. If you remember, this was the result of their attempt to build a tower reaching to heaven.¹

As with the Incarnation, at Pentecost God comes down. In the end, we will not “go up” to some imaginary heaven. Rather, as the Book of Revelation dramatically shows, the City of God will come down from heaven and the reign of God will be established on the earth forever.²

Because Pentecost marks bringing people together in the Church, the Body of Christ, made up of people of different languages, races, genders, and cultures, it seems fitting to bring up the subject of race and racism, which seems to plague our nation these days. Racism manifests in a multitude of ways. Among these ways are Antisemitism, White Supremacy, the animus shown toward Hispanic people that very often isn’t too far below the surface of most anti-immigrant rhetoric. Institutional racism is a reality but one that is invisible to most of us not directly affected by it.

Cutting to the chase, we watched in horror as a policeman, employing unapproved methods, killed yet another black man before our eyes. The name of the man who was killed is George Floyd. Because we are Christians, George Floyd is our brother by virtue of our common Baptism. George Floyd was affectionately known by many as “Big Floyd.”³

Before moving to Minneapolis for a job through a Christian work program, Floyd labored to bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Gospel of peace, to the hard-pressed third ward of Houston, his hometown. He heeded Jesus’s Great Commission, which we heard in last Sunday’s Gospel, by seeking to make disciples. He worked to bring the Gospel to young men in the Cuney Homes housing project, known popularly as “the Bricks.” A focus of Floyd’s ministry, in his own words, was “breaking the cycle of violence.”⁴

Now, I am not seeking to automatically canonize George Floyd. He certainly had his troubles. What I am saying is that he was a Christian. By the witness of his life, we know he was not Christian in some nominal sense. He was a disciple of Jesus. Discipleship can never be incidental or accidental. Christian discipleship is always intentional.

In the wake of George Floyd’s death, Minneapolis and several other cities, including Salt Lake City, which is currently under curfew, erupted into protests that turned into riots. As Christians, we know that violence only breeds violence. As Bishop Shelton Fabre, one of the few black Catholic bishops in the United States insisted in the wake of George Floyd’s death: racism is a life issue because people are losing their lives because of it.⁵ In another statement, seven U.S. bishops insisted: “We cannot turn a blind eye to these atrocities and yet still try to profess to respect every human life.”⁶ While, as Christians, we are committed to non-violence, we can’t be passive in the face of injustice. As Martin Luther King, Jr. and others showed us, non-violence is not pacifism.

But what to make of all this? I suppose each one of us has our own opinion. But as followers of Jesus Christ, we should all have in common the desire to break the world’s cycle of violence. We do that by committing ourselves to work for justice. One way to work for justice is seeking racial reconciliation. This begins with doing the hard work of confronting ourselves, becoming aware of certain attitudes, oftentimes deeply ingrained. It also involves listening to people different from ourselves, whose experiences in our culture and society differ from our own. As Pope Saint Paul VI insisted: “If you want Peace, work for justice.”⁷

Pope Francis calls on Catholics to create a “culture of encounter” in the societies in which we live.⁸ It was just such an encounter that is at the heart of Pentecost. Jews traveled from nations all over the known world to observe Shavuot. Shavuot in Greek is “Pentecost.” It is called Pentecost because this festival occurs fifty days after Passover, just as Christian Pentecost falls fifty days after Easter. On Shavuot to this day Jews celebrate God giving the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai. The people say in response to hearing the Gospel in their own languages:

We are Parthians, Medes, and Elamites, inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya near Cyrene, as well as travelers from Rome, both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans and Arabs…⁹

More than a digression, reflecting on the sin of racism and how the Gospel helps us overcome it is most fitting for this celebration. What we need to realize today as we celebrate Pentecost is founding the Church by the power of the Holy Spirit (Pentecost is reckoned to be the Church’s “birthday”), the risen Christ seeks to unite all peoples in and through the Church, making her “the universal sacrament of salvation.”¹⁰ In the Book of Revelation, John sees

a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue. They stood before the throne and before the Lamb, wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation comes from* our God, who is seated on the throne, and from the Lamb”¹¹

It is this new reality that Saint Paul pointed to when he wrote to the Christians in ancient Corinth: “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons, and we were all given to drink of one Spirit.”¹²

It is faith in Christ, which prompts Baptism. Baptism and Eucharist constitute our Christian DNA. Faith gives birth to hope. What is it we hope for? We hope for the reign of God to be fully established. When our hope turns into love, then God’s reign breaks through into the here and now, the future appears in the present. This is precisely why God gives us the great gift of faith, not for some individualized, singular salvation. Following Christ requires you to love your neighbor, to forgive those who trespass against you, to pray for and do good to your enemies, and work for justice. You cannot love God and hate your neighbor.¹³ You cannot be a racist and a Christian.

Because of Jesus Christ, membership in God’s people is not a matter of race, gender, sexual orientation, social class, or location. Membership, which is the work of the Spirit, is determined by faith in Christ alone. Inherent to this faith is a commitment to follow Jesus. This means not merely “preaching” the Good News but being good news by the way you live your life. And so, with great hope let us pray: “Come Holy Spirit and renew the face of the earth!”

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1 Genesis 11:1-9.^↩
2 Revelation 21:1-2.^↩
3 Christianity Today, “George Floyd Left a Gospel Legacy in Houston.” ^↩
4 Ibid.^↩
5 Catholic News Service, “Louisiana bishop: ‘People are losing their lives because of racism.’”^↩
6 America, “Bishops call racism a ‘real and present danger’ in aftermath of death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.”^↩
7 Pope Paul VI, Message for V World Day of Peace, 1 January 1972.^↩
8 Pope Francis, Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, sec. 220.^↩
9 Acts 2:9-11.^↩
10 Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church [Lumen Gentium], sec. 48.^↩
11 Revelation 7:9-10.^↩
12 1 Corinthians 12:13.^↩
13 1 John 4:20.^↩

The Ascension of the Lord

In many dioceses of the Western United States, including my own- the Diocese of Salt Lake City, Ascension has been transferred from Thursday in the Sixth Week of Easter to what would normally be the Seventh Sunday of Easter. I'll tell you upfront, this is not a post lamenting that transfer. Heaven knows I have weighed-in several times on that issue.

As I mentioned in my homily last Sunday concerning Pentecost, the fruit of the third of the Glorious Mysteries of our Blessed Mother's Rosary- the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost- is God's love for us. In Saint John's Last Supper Discourse, from whence comes the bulk of our Sunday Gospel readings during this Easter season (Year A of the three-year Sunday lectionary), Jesus tells his closest disciples: "But I tell you the truth, it is better for you that I go. For if I do not go, the Advocate will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you" (John 16:7).

Especially in light of the reality that the Holy Spirit has never been absent, why does Jesus say it is necessary to depart for the Spirit to come? It seems prudent to note that in the first instance it is a mystery. This means that any and all attempts to answer this question fall short of the mystery. But this doesn't mean we must pass over this singular aspect of the multi-dimensional Paschal Mystery in silence. One way I have come to think about this takes as necessary premises that after his resurrection, the Holy Spirit becomes the mode of Christ's resurrection presence in and for the world, which means that the Church, the ekklesia, the assembly of God in Christ, animated- empowered- by the Holy Spirit, becomes the sacrament of salvation in and for the world.

Getting to the point, by becoming present through the Holy Spirit, the risen Lord can be closer to us than if he were "here" and standing "over there," as it were. At least in the context of the Gospel according to John, again, during the Last Supper Discourse, Jesus uses a lot of 'in" language: "I am in the Father." "The Father is in me." "If you have seen me you have seen the Father." Perhaps looking forward to Pentecost- but maybe not from a historical-critical perspective- Jesus tells his close followers that after they have received "the Spirit of truth" they "will realize that I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you" (John 14:17.20).

My reason for drawing attention to Jesus's in language in the Last Supper Discourse is to make the point that how the risen Lord comes to be in us is by the power of the Holy Spirit. This, of course, brings us almost reflexively to sacraments and to the Eucharist, the sacrament of sacraments, the Most Blessed Sacrament, in particular. In the Eucharist, Jesus comes to be "in" us by the proclamation of the word, which happens aurally. The word of God is very important. So important, in fact, that without it the Eucharist is incomprehensible. This is a major theme in the Emmaus episode from Saint Luke's Gospel (see Luke 24:13-35). Then comes our reception of Holy Communion, which happens orally. Ultimately, sacraments, even when properly understood as symbolic signs (sacraments are signs and symbols or they are nothing at all), are pretty concrete.

The Ascension, by Benjamin West, 1801

One advantage, especially in these times, is that the vast majority of us- certainly anyone reading this- has access to God's word- the Sacred Scriptures. We need to remember, especially now, we do not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from God's mouth. As no less than a Doctor of the Church, Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, averred: "No doubt it is a great grace to receive the sacraments; but when God does not permit it, it is good nonetheless, everything is a grace." Perhaps consider learning how to "do" a Liturgy of the Word with your family during these times. The Church's lectionary is a great treasure, one too little cherished.

It is by the Holy Spirit's illumination that the word of God comes not only to inform us but to shape and form us. From the opening verses of sacred writ, we come to see that God's word is creative. He spoke everything into existence. We need to let God "make" us through the power of his divine word. This is why there is no reason for us to stand around gazing up at the sky (see Acts 1:11).

By his ascending to the Father, the Son, our Lord and Savior, can be nearer to us, not farther away. To receive the Holy Spirit, then, is to level your gaze. By leveling your gaze, you live as a Spirit-filled disciple of Jesus Christ. Inherent to being a disciple of Jesus Christ being a missionary, one who evangelizes, a person who seeks to spread the good news. Is this not the gist of our Gospel reading today? In today's Gospel we hear again the so-called "Great Commission," in which our risen Lord bids us to "make disciples of all nations" (Matthew 28:19). The good news is spread primarily by loving your neighbor as you love yourself. This requires diakonia, serving others in selfless and often inconvenient ways.

Whether Saint Francis of Assisi said it or not (probably not), it is important to preach the Gospel by using words only when we must. As someone noted on "Catholic" Twitter this week: "the positive apologetic is the christian life of loving one's neighbor, and that's insanely hard." The Spirit is given us to make it, not easy, but possible, even to the point of forgiving us when we fail. After all, "everything is a grace."

Because in and through Christ everything is a grace we can have hope. By accepting everything as a grace we come to realize that hope is not optimism. Rather, we learn through experience, even if sometimes painfully, that hope lies beyond optimism. Hope is the fruit of the second of the Glorious Mysteries of the Virgin Mary's Holy Rosary, which invites us to reflect on the Ascension of the Lord; an unfathomable mystery.

Monday Sixth Week of Easter

Readings: Acts 16:11-15; Ps 149:1b-6.9b; John 15:26-16:4a

It is important to make yourself a dwelling place for God. How you do this is quite simple: through prayer. You extend hospitality to God, like Lydia, extended it to Paul and his companion, by daily inviting God in.

When praying, you need to spend at least as much time in silence and you spend talking, if not more. Silence is God’s first language. As in any conversation, how can you listen if you’re constantly talking? Especially for people in advanced societies today, silence is difficult and uncomfortable. But like any spiritual practice, you have to stick with it until it becomes easier and more comfortable. Persistence is the path of fruitfulness.

Not only is the Holy Spirit the mode of God’s communication with us but because “we do not know how to pray as we ought,” Paul notes in his Letter to the Romans, the Spirit “intercedes [for us] with inexpressible groanings.”¹

Only those who make themselves a dwelling place for God can convincingly testify to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. It is the Holy Spirit who strengthens us when the inevitable trials start so “that you may not fall away.”² Then as now, falling away is a real danger.

I am convinced that one of the biggest dangers for Christians today is not the usually facile “new atheism" or simply going from belief to unbelief in single bound. Because it is not certain knowledge, faith implies, or least easily accommodates, doubt. A great danger is getting caught up in bad religion, then realizing it for what it is, projecting that onto everything else, rejecting it, and walking away.

What do I mean by “bad religion”? I am referring specifically referring to the phenomenon of “internet Catholicism.” This phenomenon presents not only a false magisterium but many false teachers, whose sole claim to authority, be they priests or lay people, is their internet audience. They operate on the premise, even if unspoken (though many are increasingly bold), that their authority supersedes that of bishops and even the Pope. This is what Saint John Henry Newman called “the Protestant principle.”³ Oddly, many Protestants today show more respect for and receptivity to Catholic (catholic) teaching than the purveyors of "internet Catholicism." Being sectarians, these purveyors are the antithesis of what it means to be Catholic.

St Paul Meeting Lydia of Thyatira, by Edward Irvine Halliday

These self-anointed authorities presume to teach universally on all matters of faith and morals. They set themselves up as alternatives to authentic teaching authority in the Church, not just that of the Pope, but of bishops and duly appointed pastors. They expatiate on everything from the proper way to receive Holy Communion to whether bishops in this time of pandemic can and should restrict participation in Mass for the safety of their flocks. The activities of such people are analogous to those of the Judaizers with whom Paul was frequently forced to contend.

If you’re following the teaching of someone on the internet that is at odds with the teaching of your bishop, who is a Successor of the Apostles, a member of the College of Bishops in communion with the Pope, then you can be quite sure you’ve wandered from the path. In doing so, you are putting yourself at the mercy of wolves.

One thing that seems to unite these self-appointed pontiffs is their dislike of Pope Francis, especially his determination to tackle Pharisaical legalism within the Church. Rather than liberate, such legalism seeks to enslave and labors under the delusion that a person saves himself by his own righteous deeds. Eventually, many people who labor under these heavy burdens come to think “God is asking too much of me. I just can’t do it.” Here’s good news: Jesus did what God expects! Only he is capable of doing it. Jesus is our Savior.

After being burned by the flames of misplaced zealotry, a lot of people find it difficult to believe and continue practicing the faith. Jesus said: “My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me.”⁴ Given the nearly overwhelming noise to signal ratio in our and age, it takes prayer and discernment to hear and follow the Master’s voice. It's safe to say, that the voice of authentic shepherds is gentler, less severe, not as dictatorial as those who seek to usurp authority.

If through prayer, you make yourself a dwelling place for God, it becomes easier to discern the voice of the Good Shepherd, which resonates in the voices of those duly appointed to guide his flock safely along the pilgrim path of this life.

The inspired author of Acts does not tell us what Lydia and the other women were doing on the banks of the river when Paul and his companion, who left the city of Philippi to find a place to pray on the Sabbath, encountered them. It is noted that Lydia was “a worshiper of God.”⁵ This likely means she was a Jewish proselyte, meaning one who was in the process of converting to Judaism, or perhaps a God-fearer, meaning a Gentile who, while not seeking to convert, recognized the God of Israel as the one true God and worshiped accordingly.

Therefore, it is probable that Lydia could receive the good news of Jesus Christ because she understood his Jewish context and recognized him, through Paul’s preaching, as the anticipated Messiah. This can be nothing other than the work of the Holy Spirit.

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1 Romans 8:26.^↩
2 John 16:1.^↩
3 Mark E. Powell, Papal Infallibility: A Protestant Evaluation of an Ecumenical Issue, 87.^↩
4 John 10:27.^↩
5 Acts 16:14.^↩

Year A Sixth Sunday of Easter

Readings: Acts 8:5-8.14-17; Ps 66:1-7.16.20; 1 Peter 3:15-18; John 14:15-21

Believe it or not, dear friends, in this oddest of years we are already celebrating the Sixth Sunday of Easter. This means that we are preparing for that major feast, which comes second only to Easter: Pentecost. Indeed, the Holy Spirit, sent by Christ after he ascended to the Father’s right hand is a major focus of today’s readings.

The fruit of the Third Glorious Mystery of the Blessed Virgin’s Rosary, which bids us to meditate on the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, is God’s love for us. In today’s Gospel reading, taken from Saint John’s Last Supper Discourse, Jesus assures his worried disciples that he will not abandon them. He tells them, “I will come to you.”¹ Of course, the Spirit comes fifty days after Jesus’s resurrection on what became the first Christian Pentecost.

It cannot be emphasized enough that the Holy Spirit is the mode of Christ’s resurrection presence among us, in us, and through us. In other words, the Holy Spirit, as Jesus indicates later in the same chapter from which our Gospel today is taken, “will teach you everything and remind you of all that [I] told you.”² Just as the Son speaks the will of the Father, the Holy Spirit, in turn, speaks the will of the Father and the Son.

We have to tread lightly whenever we speak of commandment-keeping. We must do so because in talking about keeping the commandments it easily turns into long lists of prescriptions and proscriptions, that is, dos and donts. The Pharisees, to whom Jesus had a thing or two to say, were great at making lists of rules and, at least in their own minds, even better at keeping those rules. When we start to make such lists, we begin to speak and act as if our salvation depends on our own relative goodness, our own righteousness. Thanks be to God, it does not. If it did, there would be absolutely no reason for us to celebrate this morning.

During Saint John’s Last Supper Discourse, Jesus gives his disciples only one commandment: love one another as I have loved you.³ To keep Jesus’s commandments is to do what love requires in every situation. This requires constant prayerful discernment. To love another means to seek her/his good, even at a cost to yourself. Agape requires diakonia. Love requires selfless service. This is how you “Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts.”⁴

It has been noted that no good deed goes unpunished. Our epistle reading today bids us persist in love even when doing that means suffering for doing what is good. Never forget that the most loving and good deed in the universe was when the Lord of the universe “humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.”⁵

When we speak in our overheated times and in our hothouse American culture about the Holy Spirit, our words and minds turn to almost crazy things: speaking in tongues, writhing on the floor, laughing hysterically, staged healings, shouting, etc. Therefore, it is important to bear in mind what the inspired word of God enumerates as the gifts of the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”⁶

This is not to dismiss belief in the miraculous, it is just to bring our expectations more in line with Sacred Scripture and Christian experience. Jesus, who seems to me to have been quite ambivalent about the miracles he performed, said that it is “An evil and unfaithful generation seeks a sign.”⁷

In our first reading, Philip, reckoned by the Church to be one of the first seven deacons, demonstrates the power of the good news. By proclaiming Jesus’s resurrection and his Lordship and Messiahship, the power of the Gospel began to be made manifest as people were cured of various ailments and liberated from oppression by the enemy.

Peter and John went to Samaria to confirm the baptism of those who responded in faith to Philip’s preaching. They conferred on them, by the laying on of hands, the same Spirit by which Philip, who, like Stephen and the other five men set apart, was filled. This brought “great joy” to their city.⁸

Philip, who fled Jerusalem to avoid persecution, was able to give the people of the city of Samaria “an explanation” for his hope.⁹ Presumably, as with his encounter with the Ethiopian eunuch, he did so with gentleness and reverence, as one would expect of a person filled with the Holy Spirit.¹⁰

During this season of Easter, perhaps more this year than ever, “We are,” in the words of Saint Augustine from a discourse on the Psalms,

all urging one another to praise the Lord, and all thereby doing what each of us urges the other to do. But see that your praise comes from your whole being; in other words, see that you praise God not with your lips and voices alone, but with your minds, your lives and all your actions¹¹

We are made from love in order to love. In reality, our lives have no other purpose. Our words and actions, therefore, should flow from loving God by loving one another. When people consider the community of Saint Olaf Parish, they should come away marveling: “See… how they love one another.”¹²

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1 John 14:18.^↩
2 John 14:26.^↩
3 John 13:34.^↩
4 1 Peter 3:15.^↩
5 Philippians 2:8.^↩
6 Galatians 5:22-23.^↩
7 Matthew 16:4.^↩
8 Acts 6:3; Acts 8:8.^↩
9 1 Peter 3:15.^↩
10 See Acts 8:26-40; 1 Peter 3:16.^↩
11 Liturgy of the Hours, Volume II, Office of Readings, Saturday, Fifth Week of Easter, Second Reading, 757-758.^↩
12 Tertullian, Apology, chap. 39.^↩

Friday Fifth Week of Easter

Readings: Acts 15:22-31; Ps 57:8-10.12; John 15:12-17

Today’s readings highlight the tension between law and grace. Bringing it a bit more down-to-earth, our readings demonstrate the tension between faith and works. In our Gospel reading, Jesus tells his disciples that he has chosen them and not vice-versa. We make a mistake when we say faith is a choice. We also make a mistake when we reduce faith to mere belief. While faith cannot be compelled, it requires a certain openness and cooperation on our part.

A person of faith is impelled by the love of Christ.¹ Faith, like hope and love, which together make-up the theological virtues, is a gift from God. While faith is our response to God’s initiative toward us, it can neither be imposed by God nor earned by us.

Jesus choosing his followers is an act of love. God’s initiative toward us can be summed up in one word: love. “God is love.”² And because God is love, the divine initiative is nothing other than God’s offer of God’s very self through the person of the Son, Jesus Christ.

By offering himself to us, which he does in a deeply profound way in the Eucharist, Jesus is present in us so, by the power of the Holy Spirit, he can be present through us to others. Isn’t this the point of our reception of Holy Communion? If it is, then it becomes clear that communion is not an end-in-itself. In other words, communion is not a “Jesus n' me” moment. Rather, communion makes us, together, Christ's Body. As a result, it is the ultimate “Jesus and we” experience.

What is the result of being “chosen” by Jesus? We are chosen to “bear fruit that will remain.”³ If hope is the flower of faith, then love- the kind referred by the Greek word agape- is its fruit. Agape is self-sacrificing or selfless love. It is demonstrated by acts that show we put others before ourselves.

There are more ways to lay down your life than to die a martyr’s death. You lay down your life by performing acts of lovingkindness. I think it’s important to note that, while certainly more intimate, the word “friend” in this passage from Saint John’s Gospel refers to much the same thing as “neighbor” in the Synoptic Gospels (i.e., Matthew, Mark, Luke).

Love liberates, it does not enslave or seek to bind with all manner of rules. While faith without works is dead, works without love are also lifeless. Love makes faith fruitful through works.

Our first reading from the Acts of the Apostles comes from a section devoted to the so-called Council of Jerusalem. The reason for this council was to deal with the crisis precipitated by Paul bringing many Gentiles into the Church. What was to be decided was the relationship of non-Jewish converts to the Law.

While, in the end, this council of the primitive Church issued some rules, let's remember that at the core of Jesus’s teaching is the truth that keeping rules cannot save you. Let’s face it, we’re not very good at keeping rules. Sooner or later we chafe under their tyranny and often wind up rebelling. It's a good thing being a Christian has never been a matter of keeping rules.

More problematic than our tendency to push-back against rules is our disposition to forget the reason for the rule. In a healthy sense, rules are a means of achieving ends. During the pandemic, for example, the reason to follow government-issued restrictions and guidelines is to slow the spread of the virus, to “flatten the curve,” so-to-speak, and keep hospitals from being overwhelmed with acute cases of COVID-19. An additional benefit of this is that we can perhaps prevent some people from contracting the virus until after there is a vaccine and/or there are better treatment options.

We can become so focused on the rule that we lose our senses and the end for which the rule was created in the first place. The end of the Law and the rules for living it is to love God with your entire being by loving your neighbor as you love yourself. What Jesus seemed to take issue with most of the time was mistaking the means for the end.

Regarding the rule not to eat meat sacrificed to idols, it becomes clear in Paul’s letters that this is not an absolute prohibition. Sure, a Christian would never sacrifice to an idol, but meat is meat. The apostle’s stipulation was that in eating meat sacrificed to idols you don’t scandalize someone whose faith is weak.⁴

The result of getting means and ends backward concerning the Law is to allow the Law to make you an enemy of God and a terror to other people. This is exactly what Jesus is getting at in this rebuke of the Pharisees in Matthew’s Gospel:

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you traverse sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves⁵

Truly good works are not done out some sense of obligation externally imposed. Rather, good works are motivated by love, by the kind of love Jesus has for us. Because love is the fruit of faith, if we love as Jesus loves, we will bear fruit that remains throughout eternity. Faith works by love.⁶

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1 2 Corinthians 5:14.^↩
2 1 John 4:8.16.^↩
3 John 15:16.^↩
4 1 Corinthians 8:7-13.^↩
5 Matthew 23:15 RSV.^↩
6 Galatians 5:6.^↩