Tuesday in the Seventh Week of Easter, May 19, 2026

John 17, 1-11

Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come. Give glory to your son, so that your son may glorify you, just as you gave him authority over all people, so that your son may give eternal life to all you gave him. Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ. I glorified you on earth by accomplishing the work that you gave me to do. Now glorify me, Father, with you, with the glory that I had with you before the world began.  I revealed your name to those whom you gave me out of the world. They belonged to you, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you gave me is from you, because the words you gave to me I have given to them, and they accepted them and truly understood that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me. I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for the ones you have given me, because they are yours, and everything of mine is yours and everything of yours is mine, and I have been glorified in them. And now I will no longer be in the world, but they are in the world, while I am coming to you.”

We are living within a culture that prizes an individuality in which the needs or aspirations of the individual come before those of the community, and because this idea has become so pervasive, even written into our laws and constitutions, we may think that not only has the idea always existed, but that there is no alternative to it.  Yet, this is not so.  For much of human history, a human person was seen as part of an organic collective.  For instance, the people living in the ancient Near East, such as the Israelites, understood that a given human person’s ancestors and descendants were contained in him such that this was understood as his identity.  With only shadowy notions of an afterlife, the emphasis in living on after one’s death was in living in one’s children and their children.  The ancients understood from this that a person could be held responsible for his ancestors’ actions.  We see this in the Gospels on an occasion when Jesus confronted the scribes and Pharisees: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, that build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the just, and say: If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore you are witnesses against yourselves, that you are the sons of them that killed the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers” (Matthew 23, 29-32).  It also helps us to understand the terrible cry of the people at the time of the Passion, “His Blood be upon us and upon our children” (Matthew 27, 25).

Here, Jesus prays for the unity of his followers with him and, through him, with each other.  This doctrine builds on the then current idea of solidarity with one’s ancestors and descendants to include people to whom one is not related at all, and this unity is not a physical one but one of grace.  St. Paul famously explains, speaking of the human body, “And if one member suffer any thing, all the members suffer with it: or if one member glory, all the members rejoice with it. Now you are the body of Christ and members of it” (1 Corinthians 12, 27).  The human body itself is a figure for the reality of the Body of Christ.

We have set before us two very different ways of thinking: that of the supremacy of the individual, and that of unity.  Another way to put it is the idea of autonomy and the idea of solidarity.  A lady I knew some years ago and who has since died, once became angry at a sermon in which it was asserted that we Christians need to be helped by one another in order to be saved.  She asserted back that she did not need anyone’s help, but that she could save herself.  Not long afterwards, she was struck by cancer and she learned the truth the hard way.  The ideas of individuality and autonomy are rooted in nothing more than pride.  The individualist shouts to the world, “I am an island!  Everyone is an island!”  Even though with a little reflection on human experience, we know that this is clearly not true.

Our Lord prays for our unity in him, and the Holy Spirit makes it so.  We who are members of the Lord’s Body must help one another get to heaven, subduing our pride and adopting the humility of a good servant.  

Monday in the Seventh Week of Easter, May 18, 2026

John 16, 29-33

The disciples said to Jesus, “Now you are talking plainly, and not in any figure of speech. Now we realize that you know everything and that you do not need to have anyone question you. Because of this we believe that you came from God.” Jesus answered them, “Do you believe now? Behold, the hour is coming and has arrived when each of you will be scattered to his own home and you will leave me alone. But I am not alone, because the Father is with me. I have told you this so that you might have peace in me. In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world.”

“Now you are talking plainly, and not in any figure of speech.”  It is not easy to discern to what exactly the disciples here responding.  If we read back a bit to their last point of confusion, we have only to see only verses earlier that they did not understand what Jesus meant when he said he was leaving them for a while and that he was going to the Father.  In the verses leading up to the first verse of today’s Gospel Reading, the Lord uses the figure of a woman in labor to help them understand what he meant, and he promises that the prayers of the Apostles would be answered.  And then the Apostles say, “Now you are talking plainly, etc.”  But the fact they do not understand that he is talking to them about his imminent Passion and Death is proven by the lack of alarm in their speech.  It is to them merely as if Jesus has unraveled one of his riddles or parables.  In this case, the Apostles seem to think that the Lord meant, by his talking about leaving them and going to the Father, that he was going off somewhere alone to pray. “Because of this we believe that you came from God.”  They believe that Jesus came from God on account of his devotion to prayer.  It is not a confession of faith that he is the Son of God.

“Do you believe now?”  The Lord knows how far from perfect is their knowledge of him and their belief in him.  He knew that they would flee from the scene of his arrest: “Behold, the hour is coming and has arrived when each of you will be scattered to his own home and you will leave me alone.”  If they truly believed he was the divine Son of God, they would not flee, but because they believed he was only a man, they did.  If he was only a man, his arrest by the Jewish authorities would mean that he could not bring about a new kingdom of Israel and there was no need to support or fight for him (though Peter, just before the arrest, does resist and cut off the ear of the high priest’s slave).  The Apostles saw and heard so much and yet they did not grasp the Lord’s divinity.  The Evangelists emphasize this rather than downplay it in order to show how it is through grace that we believe that Jesus is the only-begotten Son of God, that he is true God and true man.  This is why we can debate with someone all day long and bring forth the most persuasive proofs, but unless we are praying for the other person, our attempts to convince him of the truth will fail.

“You will leave me alone.”  The Lord suffered terribly from the hatred of the Pharisees and the tortured of the Romans, but his abandonment by his Apostles hurt him very deeply.

“But I am not alone, because the Father is with me.”  The Lord Jesus speaks here of the intimate and eternal union he has with the Father.  

“I have told you this so that you might have peace in me. In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world.”  The Lord consoles the Apostles beforehand for their grief and remorse at having abandoned — and even denied — him.  “In the world you will have trouble”, pertains, first, to the time between their abandonment of him and the announcement of the Resurrection.  They will suffer.  But they are to take courage and to be of good hope because even now, he has “conquered” the world.  That is, he foresees his conquest of sin and death, and their defeat is so near st hand that it seems to have already taken place.  His words also pertain to their life after Pentecost when they will endure much in order to spread the Gospel.  Through his conquest of the world he invites them to share in his victory.  We can understand this as encouraging us, who, at times, struggle to do the will of God in our lives and to obey his commandments.  By his victory over sin and death he has opened the gates of heaven for us.  Our longing for heaven and the Lord’s sweet company are enough to carry us through the hardest of times.

The Solemnity of the Ascension, Sunday, May 17, 2026

Matthew 28, 16-20

The eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had ordered them. When they saw him, they worshiped, but they doubted. Then Jesus approached and said to them, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”

In this region of the country the Solemnity of the Ascension of our Lord into heaven is celebrated, by order of the local bishops, on the seventh Sunday of Easter rather than on the Thursday before, the traditional day for it.

St. Luke tells us specifically that the Lord Jesus ascended into heaven from a location near Bethany.  Traditionally, he is thought to have ascended from a mountain there, though Luke does not indicate this.  In the Acts of the Apostles 1, 12, Luke does identify this mountain as the Mount of Olives.  The last few verses of St. Matthew’s Gospel do place the Lord on a mountain and speaking words which sound very much like a farewell, but Matthew does not tell us he ascended from that mountain, which, in any case was in Galilee, not Judea, as was Bethany.  It would seem odd and perhaps not fitting, then, to use Matthew 28, 16-20 as the Gospel Reading for this Feast.  However, in the words the Lord speaks in these verses he gives his Apostles, and all his faithful, a final command: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”  Having taught his disciples his commandments and formed them according to his will, he sends them out as his instruments through whom he works for the salvation of the world.  

We are all called to engage in this work of salvation and we do so not in the same identical way.  For instance, not all the Apostles wrote Gospels.  Not all the Apostles went to foreign lands.  Each did his own work according to his particular calling.  And that is true for us as well.  Not all the faithful are called to work overseas as missionaries.  Not all are called to work in organized religious communities, not all are called to be priests or religious.  But each of us is called to spread the Faith by the means God gives us, whether through active work in the world, through raising good Christian children, through prayer, through donations to missionary groups, and in other ways.  Even confined to our houses or beds we can make sacrifices and pray.  

We do not need to worry that our efforts, whatever they are, fall short, for we do not work on our own.  The Lord himself works with us and through us.  How do we know this? Because the one who can neither deceive nor be deceived tells us, “I am with you always, until the end of the age.”  He is not watching us from a distance or hovering over us in the sky.  He is within us through his grace and finishes the work we start, and perfects the work we cannot.  We know that he can do this too because he has said, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”  That is, by his Father.

The Lord departs from this world so that we will not “cling” to him and so will go into the world to carry out his command, but still he clings to us through grace.  He will always help us and console us.  And, at the end of the age, he will return for us.

Saturday in the Sixth Week of Easter, May 16, 2026

John 16, 23-28

Jesus said to his disciples: “Amen, amen, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you. Until now you have not asked anything in my name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete. I have told you this in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures but I will tell you clearly about the Father. On that day you will ask in my name, and I do not tell you that I will ask the Father for you. For the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have come to believe that I came from God. I came from the Father and have come into the world. Now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father.”

“Whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you.”  St. Thomas Aquinas says that the Lord sets down seven conditions for prayer.  First, we should ask for spiritual goods, and temporal goods only inasmuch as they serve the spiritual.  Second, that a person should persevere in prayer.  Third, prayer should be made in union with others.  Fourth, a person should pray with child-like love for the Father.  Fifth, prayer should be made with humility.  Sixth, the prayer should be made expressing the desire for God to answer it in his own time, and in his own way.  Seventh, one should pray for himself, even in preference to others.  Praying thus, we come before the Lord as truly seeking that his will may be done in our lives, conforming ourselves ever more to Jesus Christ, and not seeking to impose our will on God.

It is not easy to pray in this way, for we must fight our deep-seated pride in order to do it.  Prayer is submission to the will of God.  We may want some good earnestly, even desperately, and so we beg God for it,  But we must remember that “Your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Matthew 6, 8).  He possesses all power to answer any prayer, for “All things are possible for God” (Luke 1, 37).  He will give us a better thing than we ask for, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Luke 1, 37).  And he will give what we ask for, or that which is better than we ask for, in his good time: “The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season.  You open your hand, you satisfy the desire of every living thing” (Psalm 145:15–16).  

We should ask all things in the name of Jesus, and for this reason, the Mass and Divine Office prayers end with some variation of “We ask this through Christ our Lord.”  The Lord Jesus ever lives to make intercession for us in heaven: “He holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues for ever.  Consequently, he is able for all time to save those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 8, 24-25).  Since the Father loves his Son’s name, we should speak it only with great care, also keeping in mind that it is in his name alone that we are saved (cf. Acts 4, 12).

Friday in the Sixth Week of Easter, May 15, 2026

John 16:20-23

Jesus said to his disciples: “Amen, amen, I say to you, you will weep and mourn, while the world rejoices; you will grieve, but your grief will become joy. When a woman is in labor, she is in anguish because her hour has arrived; but when she has given birth to a child, she no longer remembers the pain because of her joy that a child has been born into the world. So you also are now in anguish. But I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you. On that day you will not question me about anything. Amen, amen, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you.”

Jesus uses the sign of a woman in labor to teach about the life of the believer.  The woman is “in anguish” during her labor and delivery, and in like manner, the believer, persevering against the temptations and persecutions in this world, is in anguish.  For the believer, the “anguish” is spiritual and prolonged, while it may also entail physical suffering.  The anguish may result from ridicule or the fear of it; hesitation in obeying our Lord’s injunction of chastity, poverty, and obedience; concern over the loss of friends and ties with family;  and, in some places, fear of surveillance and arrest for believing in Jesus.  In parts of Africa and Asia today, believers are aware that they risk injury and death simply by going to Mass.  In our country, people sometimes have to choose between the Faith and their job.

This anguish results from temptations, as well.  Very many people struggle with temptations against humility, temperance, and purity.  The fight they wage is against invisible enemies: the world, the flesh and the devil.  The world, in that worldly people encourage vice.  Partly this is economic: people enrich themselves by aiding other people’s vices.  By contrast, no one gets rich through helping another to become virtuous.  Partly, this is because worldly people cannot bear even the slightest rebuke and so they seek to make everyone to be like themselves, eliminating its possibility.  The flesh, in that our fallen human nature obscures our discernment and our judgment.  With St. Paul, we say, “I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do” (Romans 7, 18-19).  Left to ourselves, we cry out, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”  But the believer who relies on divine help in time of need, rejoices: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7, 24-25).  And the devil, for, as the Lord said to St. Peter at the Last Supper, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat” (Luke 22, 31).  To this horrifying revelation, the Lord says that he has prayed to the Father for him, and that later, Peter will have the strength with which to console and build up his brother Apostles.

This sign of the woman in labor is further revealed in chapter twelve of the Book of Revelation: “And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; she was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for delivery” Revelation 12, 1-2).  This “woman” is the Church on earth, struggling to bring forth the Church Victorious in heaven.  She is harassed by a fearsome dragon with seven heads — the devil.  He attempts to devour her child the moment she bears it, but the child is “snatched up” by God: the saints enjoy divine protection and their souls enter heaven with the death of their bodies.  This divine protection is also shown in the subsequent battle in heaven, with the angels, led by Michael, casting the wicked ones down to earth.  When the devil sees that the Church in heaven is safe from him, he turns against the Church on earth, the woman who was in labor, but she is protected against him as well, though she continues to dwell in the “wilderness” of the present life.  At the end of the Book of Revelation, we see her transformed into the glittering and glowing Bride of Christ, who is prepared for her Bridegroom.

The struggle to live out the Faith, to overcome vices and grow strong in the virtues, is continuous.  It is normal.  And it can be glorious, as we see in the lives of the saints, who had to fight the same temptations as we.  

Personal Note: May 15 is the 27th anniversary of my ordination to the Priesthood. There is nothing on this planet more wonderful than offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Holy Mass. please continue to pray for me to be a good priest.

The Feast of St. Matthias, Thursday, May 14, 2026

Acts 1:15-17, 20-26

Peter stood up in the midst of the brothers and sisters (there was a group of about one hundred and twenty persons in the one place). He said, “My brothers and sisters, the Scripture had to be fulfilled which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand through the mouth of David, concerning Judas, who was the guide for those who arrested Jesus. Judas was numbered among us and was allotted a share in this ministry. For it is written in the Book of Psalms: Let his encampment become desolate, and may no one dwell in it. and: May another take his office. Therefore, it is necessary that one of the men who accompanied us the whole time the Lord Jesus came and went among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day on which he was taken up from us, become with us a witness to his resurrection.” So they proposed two, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also known as Justus, and Matthias. Then they prayed, “You, Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two you have chosen to take the place in this apostolic ministry from which Judas turned away to go to his own place.” Then they gave lots to them, and the lot fell upon Matthias, and he was counted with the Eleven Apostles.

In the Diocese of Arlington as in many dioceses in the U.S., the Solemnity of the Ascnsion of our Lord Jesus Christ has been transferred to the seventh  Sunday after Easter. We will reflect today on the first reading for the Feast of St. Matthias, which falls on this day.

Within a very short time of the Lord’s Ascension into heaven, we already see St. Peter very much the leader of the Apostles, decisive and conscious of his authority.  We also see the beginnings of a hierarchy structure of leadership and ministry, which will enable the Church to spread, doctrine to be uniform, and controversies to be settled quickly.  Here, we see Peter identifying a need of the Church and providing a persuasive argument towards taking care of it.  He sees the number twelve as signifying the integrity of the Apostles, and as the number specified very deliberately by the Lord.  To reestablish this integrity, according to the mind of Christ so that the mission of converting the world, he proposes a solution to which the others agree.  After praying, Matthias is chosen to take the place of the dead traitor Judas.  Matthias had been “a witness” to all the Lord had done in his public ministry and so was qualified to be considered.  He witnessed all the Lord had done because he had chosen to do so.  He had followed along with the crowd of disciples — a word that properly means “students”, whereas “Apostle” means “one who is sent forth”.  He would have given up his work and home to do this.  Jesus meant everything to him.

St. Matthias is said by the early Church historian Eusebius to have lived a celibate life.  The oldest traditions say that he preached mostly in Judea and that he was stoned and beheaded in Jerusalem.  Other traditions say that he preached in the northern regions of Asia Minor.  

Wednesday in the Sixth Week of Easter, May 13, 2026

John 16:12-15

Jesus said to his disciples: “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now. But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth. He will not speak on his own, but he will speak what he hears, and will declare to you the things that are coming. He will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you. Everything that the Father has is mine; for this reason I told you that he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.”

The Lord continues to prepare the Apostles for their life after his Resurrection by emphasizing the work of the Holy Spirit.  He has already spoken of the unity which will bind them to one another through Christ, and that he will enlighten their minds to the Lord’s teachings.  Now the Lord explains how the Holy Spirit will work.  The Holy Spirit will guide them to all truth; he will not speak independently of the Father as though he had his own mission or purpose, but the Father will speak through him.  He will tell the Apostles of “the things that are coming”.  He will glorify Jesus in that he will enlighten them as to the depths in his words.  Indeed, this is a description of the work of the Christian.  We note St. Paul in today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles: Paul attempts to guide the people of Athens into the truth, showing them how God can be known from nature; he does not bring his own message or promote himself in any way, but God and his Son; he glorifies Jesus in teaching about his Resurrection.  We see clearly that Paul is of the Holy Spirit.  A graphic picture of what this means is provided us in the description of the coming of the Holy Spirit as Pentecost: a tremendous wind filled the room where they were praying, and flames appeared over their heads.  The Holy Spirit himself is Fire and the flames signify that the Apostles are now flames of the Fire.  They actually become more than “vessels” of the Holy Spirit, or, if you will, the wooden torches on which the Holy Spirit burns: their hearts are different now and they think and love in ways not possible before.  They are more confirmed to the mind of Christ than ever before, not just agreeing with him, but thinking with him.  

How radically does the Holy Spirit transform a person?  Let’s look at St. Paul again.  As Saul, he is described in the Acts as making “havoc of the Church, entering in from house to house: and dragging away men and women, committed them to prison” (Acts 8, 3).  He delivered Christians to torture and death.  He destroyed the lives of many men, women, and children because of their belief in Christ.  Not content with the horror he caused in Jerusalem, he was traveling to Damascus to do the same when Christ confronted him.  Years later, he could list his sufferings for the Lord, “”Many labors, in prisons, frequently, in stripes above measure, nearly killed, often. Of the Jews five times did I receive forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods: once I was stoned: thrice I suffered shipwreck: a night and a day I was in the depth of the sea. In journeying often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils from my own nation, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils from false brethren: In labor and painfulness, in much watchings, in hunger and thirst, fasting often, in cold and nakedness” (2 Corinthians 11:23–27).  Here is a man changed into fire by the Fire.

It would aid in our salvation if you and I frequently recalled that we are baptized and confirmed with the same Holy Spirit as St. Paul.  Wherever God puts us, we can all serve him with Fire.