The Tuesday after the Ascension, June 1, 2022

John 17, 11-19

Lifting up his eyes to heaven, Jesus prayed, saying: “Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are one. When I was with them I protected them in your name that you gave me, and I guarded them, and none of them was lost except the son of destruction, in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you. I speak this in the world so that they may share my joy completely. I gave them your word, and the world hated them, because they do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the Evil One. They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world. And I consecrate myself for them, so that they also may be consecrated in truth.”

At the end of his Last Supper Discourse to the Apostles, the Lord Jesus prays to his Father for their unity.  This much-abused idea becomes very important when the Faith spreads to Gentile lands.  The converts there need to be assured and reassured that they are united to Christians throughout the world, whether they are of Gentile or Jewish origin.  This means that they can share their joys and sufferings with each other, and strengthen one another through prayers and shared graces.  They are now members of the Body of Christ.  The sources and expressions of their unity are their common doctrine, taught them by Christ and his Apostles and their successors; their worship of God which may take various forms locally and yet accomplishes what the Church wants it to do; and a common morality.

“Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are one.”  Standing before his Father even now, the Lord Jesus pleads for us with this same prayer.  This unity is a real unity, grounded spiritually.  You and I who are baptized exist in a union comparable to that between the eternal Father and his Son.  “I guarded them, and none of them was lost except the son of destruction, in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled.”  During his lifetime, the Lord gathered these men together as Apostles and protected them both from internal dissension and from exterior persecution.  This should be our prayer for the Church as well.  Judas, “the son of destruction” was “lost” because he rejected Jesus, despite the Lord’s love for him which even took the form of several warnings not to commit sin.  Judas, then, got himself “lost” in the darkness which has no end.  The Scriptures did not compel Judas to act as he did, but his actions caused the fulfillment of the Scriptures.

“But now I am coming to you. I speak this in the world so that they may share my joy completely.”  The Lord Jesus looks through his coming suffering and Death towards his return to the Father.  He thinks not of agony in the near present but of the joy beyond that.  This is how we should live.  We think of the words of the Psalm, “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. Going they went and wept, casting their seeds. But coming they shall come with joyfulness, carrying their sheaves” (Psalm 126, 5-7).  He prays that the Apostles will have joy in his joy.  If we truly love someone, that person’s happiness is very important to us so that we rejoice when that person rejoices as though for some good that has come to us.

“I gave them your word, and the world hated them, because they do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world.”  The Lord looks to the future and sees that the Apostles and the Church are hated not only for preaching the word of God, but even for possessing it.  The “world”, that is the devil and his angels as well as their followers on earth, but also our fallen human nature which reacts against our attempts at self-discipline for the sake of carrying out the Lord’s commandments and for preaching the Gospel.  “I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the Evil One.” The Apostles and the Church must remain for a period of time in the world in order to work for the conversion of those living upon it, even the Lord’s enemies.  Jesus does not ask God to take them out of the world before the proper time in order that every last individual person might have the chance to follow or reject him, even if that means enduring suffering.  The Lord does pray that the Father protect them from the devil, our adversary, who “as a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5, 8).  By this, the Lord means to protect the faithful from losing their faith due to scandal and the enticements of the world.  “They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world.”  Our true home is in heaven with Jesus.  We do not build our houses on the shifting sands of time but on the rock of eternity, the Lord”# promises.

“Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth.”  Consecrate them to yourself, Father, for their proclamation of the truth of the Gospel.  “As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world. And I consecrate myself for them, so that they also may be consecrated in truth.”  The Son of God was purposefully sent into the world into to save souls.  Those who belong to him are also purposefully sent into the world.  As the Lord asks the Father to consecrate them to himself, the Son consecrates himself to them.  That is, he solemnly dedicates himself to those who believe in him so that they might spread the Gospel which the Father entrusted the Son to give to them.  The Lord Jesus is truly with us “to the consummation of the world” (Matthew 28, 20), enabling us through his grace to do his most holy will as he did that of his Almighty Father.

 The Feast of the Visitation, Tuesday, May 31, 2022 

Luke 1:39-56

Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, “Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the Mother of my Lord should come to me? For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.” 

This feast celebrates the visit of the Blessed Virgin Mary, newly pregnant with the Son of God, to her cousin Elizabeth, pregnant with John the Baptist.  Both pregnancies are miraculous.  In the first case, a Virgin has conceived; in the second, a woman well passed child-bearing years.  By her visit to Elizabeth, the Virgin Mary shows herself the prompt handmaid of God.  Heedless of herself and of the dignity accorded to her through her virginal conception of the Son of God, she places herself at the service of another, taking the Angel Gabriel’s revelation to her of Elizabeth’s state as the command to go and assist her.  Elizabeth would have received Mary’s visit as confirmation of the miraculous nature of her conception and of the greatness of the child she would bear, since she had hidden herself in the house for months and no one could have known of it, unless revealed to them by God.

“Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah.”  This should read, “Mary arose in those days, etc.”  The handmaid rose up from her position on the floor to carry out the Master’s command.  The favor shown to her by Almighty God does not tempt her to forget her place.  In her mind, the favor shows God’s glory and does not accord her glory.  Almost certainly she would have told her espoused, Joseph, because he had a need to know and when she returned from her cousin her own pregnancy would be obvious, for she intended to remain there for some time, assisting in whatever way she could.  “She entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.”  The text does not say that she greeted Zechariah too.  As an elder, he may have stood with the other elders of the town at its gate, as was the longstanding custom.  He would have greeted Mary, whose visit he could not have anticipated, joyously but in silence, since he had been struck deaf and mute.  She, in her turn, would have found his condition astonishing, and also a confirmation of the miraculous nature of Elizabeth’s pregnancy.  Together they would have gone to the house.  Elizabeth would have found refuge in the very back of the house where the women usually slept for safety’s sake.  Unless she had servants, Mary’s voice would have been the first she had heard in three months.  And joined with Mary’s voice  was Another.  Her voice was now different.  And with it came grace.

“When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice.”  Like King David leapt before the Ark of the Covenant, John the Baptist leaps before the One signified by the Ark.  we might think of this “leaping” as a sign of the Resurrection to come, as when the souls of men and women rose up with Christ in his rising up (cf. Matthew 52-53).  “Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the Fruit of your womb.”  It would be one thing to bless the Fruit of her womb, for Elizabeth knows through “divine inspiration that this is her Lord, but she also pronounces Mary as “blessed”.  On behalf of the human race, she acknowledges Mary’s unique holiness.  “And how does this happen to me, that the Mother of my Lord should come to me?”  She is astounded that Mary, whose womb is filled with the Son of God, should come to her in service.  Elizabeth saw herself as of no account before the Mother of her Lord, and her child leaping in her womb at Mary’s approach showed her greatness and that of her Child.  Mary, though, only saw herself as the handmaid.  It was her identity.  Not even this unprecedented favor changed that, in her eyes.  “Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.”  Elizabeth saw what we sometimes forget: Mary’s faith.  She truly and deeply believed that God would accomplish whatever he proposed to do.  Nothing was impossible for him.  

Mary’s faith is the model for our faith.  When Gabriel announced to Zechariah the priest that his aged wife would conceive, he doubted, though this had been done before in Jewish history.  When the same Angel told a simple Virgin that she would conceive the Son of God something that had never happened before, she only asked how this would be done in view of her firm and divinely prompted intention to remain a Virgin.  The Lord promises to forgive our sins if we are truly repentant and to bring us to everlasting life if we believe in him and obey his commandments — astounding promises.  We have faith in him that he will carry this out for us, no matter what we have done in our lives.

 Monday in the Seventh Week of Easter, May 30, 2022

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.”

The Gospel reading for today’s Mass comes from the end of the Lord’s Last Supper Discourse.  After he finished speaking, he led his Apostles out to the Garden of Gethsemane so that he could pray.  

The Lord Jesus has spoken for an hour or even longer, teaching, urging, and warning his Apostles.  He has revealed and promised great things to them.  Now, at the end, they say, “Now you are talking plainly, and not in any figure of speech.”  The Greek word translated here as “figure of speech” actually means “an allegory”.  What is noteworthy here is not that the Lord was finally “talking plainly” but that the Apostles confess that they had thought Jesus was teaching primarily in allegories before.  In fact, apart from the parables, the Lord had spoken plainly throughout the three years of his Public Life.  The Apostles, during this time, had tried to interpret what he told them in accord with their understanding of the Law and of the Messiah.  His speaking was plain and direct, but not their hearing. “Now we realize that you know everything and that you do not need to have anyone question you.”  This could be translated as, “. . . and that no one should challenge you.”  

“Because of this we believe that you came from God.”  This statement of belief is not as strong as St. Peter’s in Matthew 16, 16, and can mean a wide range of things.  It does allow us to gauge the level and depth of the belief of the Apostles before the Lord’s Resurrection and after it, and then after Pentecost.  The Lord responds to this weak expression of their faith: “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.”  Two of the three people who will stand under the Cross with him will be women followers — his Mother, and Mary Magdalene.  Only one Apostle will go there.   “You will leave me alone.”  The Greek verb translated here as “will leave” has the primary sense of “to send away”, so it is as if the Lord were saying that the Apostles would throw him aside as they ran for their lives.  The Greek word translated here as “alone” has the sense of “solitary” and “desolate”.  Of all the Lord’s sufferings, perhaps the most pathetic is how alone he is.  There is no one to comfort him, no one to support him, no one to contradict the evil that people are saying about him.  

“But I am not alone, because the Father is with me.”  And yet, in his agony, it will seem that even his Father has abandoned him, for he cries out from the Cross, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27, 46), taking the verse from Psalm 22.  Even then, though, he knows his Father is with him.  The Lord tells the Apostles this to teach them that if they leave him, they are the ones who will be alone.  They will be “scattered to his own home”, not even together, and they will then will not have the Father with them as they have abandoned his Son.  Their desolation will be so great in their solitude that they will make their way back to the house where they had eaten the Last Supper with him, as though to go back in time to when he was still alive.  “I have told you this so that you might have peace in me.”  He foretells these events to them so that they will know at that time to be confident that the other things he has told them will come to pass.

“In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world.” This should be translated, “In the world you have persecution [or, affliction], but take courage, etc.”  “Trouble” can be small or great and accidental, but persecution and affliction are directed by someone at someone.  It is malicious in a way mere “trouble” is not.  The Lord Jesus announces even before his Death and Resurrection that he has “conquered the world”.  St. Thomas says that he overcame the concupiscence of the eyes, of the body, and the pride of life.  He did this through overcoming lust with his continence, riches with his poverty, and pride with his humility.  

We learn from this reading more of the Lord Jesus, his personality and his knowledge of his Apostles.  He knows very clearly what he is doing and what will happen.  He will be dead in less than 24 hours and he is still the one who is calm, in command, and majestic.  We can share in the victory he won over the world by also conquering its vices and temptations by the virtues which we receive from him.  

 The Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, Sunday, May 29, 2022

Mark 16:15–20

Jesus said to his disciples: “Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned. These signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will drive out demons, they will speak new languages. They will pick up serpents with their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them. They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”  So then the Lord Jesus, after he spoke to them, was taken up into heaven and took his seat at the right hand of God. But they went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the word through accompanying signs.

The Gospels of Sts. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all end with the Lord commanding the Apostles to preach the Word of God in every land and then ascending into heaven.  With that command, he assures them of his continuing assistance.  St. Mark’s account contains elements not found in the other two Gospels.  For instance, the revelation that “whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned.”  While this teaching is clear and stated in other ways in all four of the Gospels, only Mark records it in this place.  It is significant that the Lord says this here and that it is recorded for us.  It certainly made an impression on St. Peter, from whose recollections Mark produced his Gospel.  The Lord is underlining for the Apostles the urgency of their mission to convert the world.  Now, when the Lord says, “Whoever does not believe will be condemned”, he means those who have heard their preaching, understood its meaning, and have rejected it.  He is not saying that those who do not hear their preaching will be condemned.  We do not know what happens to those but we pray that they may be saved too.  The urgency is to bring the message of God’s love and care to those who live in the despair on unbelief so that they may have joy, serve God in this world, and be happy with him in heaven.  The urgency is also for the Apostles themselves, that in zealously pursuing the work of God they may attain heaven.

“These signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will drive out demons, they will speak new languages. They will pick up serpents with their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them. They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”  Grace is not without visible effect.  It is invisible and for that reason very powerful, influencing and transforming what is inside a person with exterior signs of that influence or transformation.  “They will drive out demons.”  Some will exorcise through the authority of the Church, but all will drive out the power of the devil in this world by their prayers and good deeds which bring others into the Faith.  “They will speak new languages.”  The teachings of Christ will spread to places unheard of by the Apostles, and to distant times when new languages have developed.  “They will pick up serpents with their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them.”  That is, they need not be afraid of danger or persecution.  They should not seek them out, but bear with them when they come.

“They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”  This refers to the miracles of the saints as well as to those healed through the Anointing of the Sick.  It also means the conversion of the unbelievers, “sick” in their sins.

“So then the Lord Jesus, after he spoke to them, was taken up into heaven and took his seat at the right hand of God.”  He was taken up publicly and visibly so that the Apostles and disciples knew that they would see him no longer on earth.  There was no longer a compelling reason for them to stay in one place together, moving with the Lord up and down Israel.  They could now go forth to all the world: “They went forth and preached everywhere.”  And as the Lord had confirmed his own teaching with signs, so he confirmed that of his Apostles and those who came after them “through accompanying signs.”  Prompted by the Holy Spirit and in service to the commandment of the Lord Jesus, we go out to the world as well, either physically, as St. Francis Xavier, or with our strengthening prayers, as St. There’s of Lisieux, or converting others in our daily lives through our words and acts of mercy, as St. Monica.

Saturday in the Sixth Week of Easter

 Saturday in the Sixth Week of Easter, May 28, 2022

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.”

We pray for the souls of the children who were killed in the massacre in Texas and we pray for the recovery of the survivors.  Many people are calling for laws to restrict the ownership and use of firearms, and it does seem that greater restrictions should be enacted to prevent, as much as possible, the immature, the mentally ill, and convicted felons from getting hold of them.  The problem, however, is much the same as in the matter of abortion.  We can pass all the laws we want, but if we do not change hearts, people will simply break the laws.  Perhaps we will learn more about the killer and his family (where is the father?) so that we can form a better idea of why this young man killed these children.  I wonder if the root cause of the anger or frustration that plays such a large part in this killing and so many like it has to do with the attitude parents display towards children these days, an attitude which also sees abortion as a possibility during pregnancy.  It is the exaltation of the individual and a belief in personal “autonomy” which reduces other people — parents, children, siblings, spouses, friends, anyone — to obstacles to success or enjoyment of life — or, at best, as facilitators of these things.  Vices like pornography and probably addictions to video games amplify this.  And when the person who believes himself autonomous becomes frustrated, he acts without restraint.  After all, these are not real people.  They are my obstacles or they represent my obstacles.  That social media allows people to rage anonymously — and so, safely, without repercussions or correction — does not help, either.  We learn we do not have to hold back, and that it is good to “let it all out”.  It makes us feel better.  The only way out from this mindset is the discovery by each person of the torrential love of the Lord Jesus for that person.  I wrote a few weeks ago of a man I went to see in the hospital who wanted to go to confession.  The night before, he had experienced this love of Jesus for him.  It overwhelmed him.  He had lived a godless life for many years but now wanted to return to Christ with all his heart.  Somewhere, someone was praying for that man.  You and I need to pray long and hard for the conversion of souls, if only for the survival of our society.

“Amen, amen, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you.”  St. John’s account of the Last Supper extends through four chapters of his Gospel, about a fifth of it.  We can learn from this the importance that John attached to the events and discourse that this section contains.  The first verse of this reading should be read in context, especially coming as it does at the end of the discourse.  The Lord has spoken to the Apostles about his going forth from this world and their remaining in it under the care of the Holy Spirit, whom he will send them.  They are to bear fruit, the fruit of faith.  To accomplish this, the Lord Jesus tells them to ask the Father for whatever they need and to ask for it in his name.  This is fitting, for they are to continue the work initiated by the Lord Jesus in converting the world.  “Until now you have not asked anything in my name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.”  Asking for what they need in the name of Jesus constitutes a new commandment for them, or, to look at it another way, a new and certain way of obtaining what they need to spread the Gospel.  They will have joy in their labor for Jesus despite the hardships they will endure, and it will be complete in heaven.  As St. Paul wrote to the Philippians after his release from prison, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1, 17).  

“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.”  That is, I have taught you in figures and parables about the Father but soon you will see him face to face in heaven.  We need to remind ourselves all the time that in this world “we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face” (1 Corinthians 13, 12).  The eyes of our hearts are fogged with impurities and sin and so we cannot see aright.  The time will come when, purged and cleansed, they will see all things as they are, and so, pure of heart, we will see God.  But for the present we can hardly even see ourselves.  “On that day you will ask in my name, and I do not tell you that I will ask the Father for you.”  There will no longer be anything to pray for when the just are all in heaven after the final judgment.  “For the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have come to believe that I came from God.”  The Father’s love does not depend on any condition, even that of believing in his Son, but it is experienced by and effective within a person when that person does believe.  

“I came from the Father and have come into the world.  Now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father.”  The Lord Jesus has announced this to the Apostles several times within his Last Supper Discourse so that it is a refrain.  We must try to think like the Apostles: You have worked so hard, performed so many miracles, faced down those who oppose you, and entered Jerusalem in triumph, and you are going to leave now?  What about the kingdom you preached about?  What about overthrowing Roman rule?  What about us?  Only after the Resurrection did he teach them that he had come to die for our sins.  This was part of the “too much to bear now” of which he had spoken earlier (cf. John 16, 12).  

 Friday in the Sixth Week of Easter, May 27, 2022

Acts 18:9-18

One night while Paul was in Corinth, the Lord said to him in a vision, “Do not be afraid. Go on speaking, and do not be silent, for I am with you. No one will attack and harm you, for I have many people in this city.” He settled there for a year and a half and taught the word of God among them.  But when Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews rose up together against Paul and brought him to the tribunal, saying, “This man is inducing people to worship God contrary to the law.” When Paul was about to reply, Gallio spoke to the Jews, “If it were a matter of some crime or malicious fraud, I should with reason hear the complaint of you Jews; but since it is a question of arguments over doctrine and titles and your own law, see to it yourselves. I do not wish to be a judge of such matters.” And he drove them away from the tribunal. They all seized Sosthenes, the synagogue official, and beat him in full view of the tribunal. But none of this was of concern to Gallio.  Paul remained for quite some time, and after saying farewell to the brothers he sailed for Syria, together with Priscilla and Aquila. At Cenchreae he had shaved his head because he had taken a vow.

Following Easter and preceding Pentecost, the Church uses readings from the Acts of the Apostles and from the Gospel of St. John.  The Gospel readings feature the Lord Jesus teaching the Apostles (and us) about the Holy Spirit; the readings from Acts show us the Holy Spirit on action in the early days of the Church.  In readings such as the one for today’s Mass, the Holy Spirit goes unmentioned, and yet he is working through the actions of the Apostles and others.  The Holy Spirit never speaks directly to us in his own Person, preferring to speak of the Father and the Son.  We can see his effects, however, and know that he is acting, for, as the Lord Jesus told Nicodemus, “The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes” (John 3, 8).

When the Apostles began to preach the Gospel, the whole wide world was open to them.  Tradition holds that they divided up by lot the vast field of their labors, relying on the Holy Spirit to guide them to guide them to the destinations meant for them by Providence, just as they had for the choice of Matthias to replace Judas Iscariot.  Andrew, for instance, drew Greece.  While on their journeys, they prayed to the Holy Spirit to tell them when to stay and when and where to move on.  St. Paul is depicted in the Acts as praying in this way, and he himself speaks of praying for the opportunity to visit the Christians in Rome (cf. Romans 1, 10).  “Do not be afraid. Go on speaking, and do not be silent, for I am with you. No one will attack and harm you, for I have many people in this city.”  At the beginning of today’s reading from the Acts, the Lord Jesus appears to Paul to tell him what he is to do in the city of Corinth, to which the Holy Spirit had directed him.  The Lord appeared to Paul on a few occasions in order to strengthen him at crucial times or, as in this case, to confirm his understanding of what the Holy Spirit was telling him in his heart.

“He settled there for a year and a half and taught the word of God among them.”  When Paul came to convert a city, he began by attending that city’s synagogue (all the larger cities in the Empire had one).  Often, as a traveler, he would be asked to speak.  Sometimes his reputation came before him to a place and the Jews there were eager to hear what this famous man had to teach them.  Paul’s words attracted some and alienated others, as we would expect.  Though he was not a great speaker, as he himself admitted, he was earnest, sincere, and learned, as a Pharisee.  He knew his Scriptures, he knew his message, and he persuaded many people in each place he visited to follow the Lord Jesus: “Even if I am unskilled in speaking, I am not in knowledge; in every way we have made this plain to you in all things” (2 Corinthians 11, 6). 

“But when Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews rose up together against Paul and brought him to the tribunal.”  This Gallio was the son of Seneca the Elder and the brother of philosopher and writer Seneca the Younger.  He was educated in philosophy and rhetoric.  Like his more famous father and brother, he became involved in the imperial politics in Rome.  He died in the year 65 A.D.  He was an intelligent man and a cultured man, far more so than, for instance, Pontus Pilate had been.  Some of the Jews, during his rule, rose up against Paul and went to the proconsul about him.  Paul had lived there by then for a year and a half and must have converted most of the synagogue to have been able to stay in the city for so long.  There were those, of course, who vehemently opposed the way of Christ and so they fought him through Paul.  It is curious that the Jews, both in Jerusalem and in Corinth (as well as in other places) seem to think that the secular rulers have any interest in their religious affairs.  Gallio says that their affairs are not his, and the Jews turn on Sosthenes, the “synagogue official” (either the builder or owner of the synagogue) and best him up in full view of the proconsul.  Presumably Sosthenes had supported Paul and perhaps had become a Christian himself.  Gallio would not be dragged into their trap by sending in troops, a move the Jews hoped would result in Paul’s arrest.  The Holy Spirit guided Gallio here in his prudent avoidance of the interests of those opposed to Christ.

“Paul remained for quite some time, and after saying farewell to the brothers he sailed for Syria, together with Priscilla and Aquila.”  Priscilla and Aquila were a married couple whom Paul had met and converted.  They had lived in Rome, and when Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome after a civil disturbance, they came to Greece.  At the appointed time, the Apostle Paul departed from Corinth and its by then vibrant Christian community in order to return to Syria on his way back to Jerusalem.  We can see the Holy Spirit active here in the preaching of Paul and the success of his preaching, the growth of the Church in Corinth despite its enemies, the conversion of very many people, both Jews and Gentiles, and then Paul’s moving on.  He could have remained there in relative peace and comfort for the rest of his life, but the Holy Spirit urged him on at the time meant for him, and he was obedient to the Holy Spirit.

“At Cenchreae he had shaved his head because he had taken a vow.”  Cenchreae was a kind of suburb of Corinth, on the Achaean coast.  Paul would have shaved his head there before embarking for Syria.  This is a strange little remark that St. Luke leaves unexplained.  He must have expected his readers to understand what was meant.  The vow may have signified the success of his first work in Europe.  He could have made the vow before crossing over from Asia and the news of his vow gotten back to Antioch so that when his friends in Antioch saw him again, they would know at once how the Gospel had fared through his cooperation with the Holy Spirit.

 Thursday in the Sixth Week of Easter, May 26, 2022

John 16:16-20

Jesus said to his disciples: “A little while and you will no longer see me, and again a little while later and you will see me.” So some of his disciples said to one another, “What does this mean that he is saying to us, ‘A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me,’ and ‘Because I am going to the Father’?” So they said, “What is this ‘little while’ of which he speaks? We do not know what he means.” Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, “Are you discussing with one another what I said, ‘A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me’? Amen, amen, I say to you, you will weep and mourn, while the world rejoices; you will grieve, but your grief will become joy.”

In the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia, the Feast of the Ascension is transferred to the following Sunday.  This is true in other U.S. dioceses as well, but not in all.  The Mass readings for today continue their sequence from the Acts of the Apostles and the Last Supper Dialogue from the Gospel of St. John.

“A little while and you will no longer see me.”  The Greek word translated as “a little while” is no more specific than that.  As far as the Apostles know, the Lord could be speaking of hours, days, or weeks.  Paired with, “and again a little while later and you will see me”, the Lord seems to speak in a riddle or paradox.  As we know, this confused the Apostles at the time.  They would only have understood his meaning after the Resurrection.  The Lord is not being cruel to them, though.  He is preparing them to understand the meaning of his Resurrection, an unparalleled event of which they had been told but which made no sense to them then.  We might compare the Lord speaking to them like this with his Transfiguration.  Peter, James, and John did not understand that, either, and the Lord told them to “tell the vision to no one, till the Son of man be risen from the dead” (Matthew 17, 9).  Thus, in both cases, the Lord prepares them for their separation from him by his Death but also for his Resurrection by implying or declaring that they will be enlightened when he rises again and appears to them.

So, “A little while and you will no longer see me, and again a little while later and you will see me.”  They will no longer see him because he will die, and when they do see him it will be with his Glorified Body.  He will be the same Son of God united to a human nature but his Body will be glorified in its risen form.  The Lord makes the essential distinction that his Body is mortal before his Death but will be immortal when he rises from the dead.  It is the same Body but transformed in the Resurrection.  We see something of the nature of this Body in that it can pass through walls but still be tangible to the touch of St. Thomas.

The Apostles struggled with this and they began to ask each other what they thought the Lord meant.  They could not, on their own, discover his meaning.  The doctrine of the Glorified Body had to be revealed by God for us to know it at all.  This is for another time, however.  They could begin to understand only when he showed his Risen Body to them.  For now, he prepares them.  He plants seeds in their minds.

“Amen, amen, I say to you, you will weep and mourn, while the world rejoices; you will grieve, but your grief will become joy.”  This, too, sounds like a riddle or paradox.  The Lord prepares them for the days to come and marks the distinction between how they will respond and how the world will do so.  Before becoming his followers, the Apostles lived “in the world”.   While not wicked men, they set their hearts on material prosperity.  They were practicing Jews, for the most part, but not zealous ones.  They prayed, but they were not spiritual people.  The Lord lifted them up from the world of ambitions and pleasures so that they might learn to serve God alone.  Their interests no longer lay with the world, but with him.  And so the Lord says to them that when he is taken from them, they will “weep and mourn” but the world will rejoice.  The Pharisees and the Jewish leaders, whom they formerly listened to, will rejoice.  All those who set their hearts on exploitation and plunder would rejoice.  The Lord was saying to them, Look how far you have come with me!  You are not of the world anymore but are of me!  And then he comforts them: “But your grief will become joy.”  These words bring to mind Psalm 114, 1-4, where an astonished Israelite exclaims, “When Israel went out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a barbarous people: Judea was made his sanctuary, Israel his dominion. The sea saw and fled: Jordan was turned back. The mountains skipped like rams, and the hills like the lambs of the flock.”  The liberation of the Hebrew slaves from Egypt was shocking.  Slave rebellions were severely crushed in ancient times, and here the Hebrews walked out of Egypt, laden with presents from their oppressors.  Even more shocking, the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus.  

 Wednesday in the Sixth Week of Easter, May 25, 2022

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.”

“I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.”  He had told them so much already, principally about himself: that he was the Son of God come down from heaven, equal to the Father, and that he was about to return there.  We should note that he does not talk to the Apostles about his imminent arrest, sufferings, and Death, and that he will endure this for the redemption of the human race.  He will teach them about the meaning of his Death only after he rises again.  Instead, he teaches the Apostles about their work on earth with the assistance of the Holy Spirit and their destiny in heaven.  He teaches them according to their capacity to learn at this stage of their growth as believers.

“When he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth.”  This is the Advocate of whom the Lord had just spoken, the Holy Spirit.  He will provide the impetus for their work and inspire them in their teaching.  He will guide them to “all truth”, all that they need to know so that they might teach what is necessary for us to believe to be saved.  “He will not speak on his own, but he will speak what he hears, and will declare to you the things that are coming.”  We see this in St. Paul’s Letters to the Thessalonians when he teaches about “the man of perdition” who will come in the last days (cf. 2 Thessalonians 2, 3) and other details of that time which are not mentioned in the Gospels.  We also see this in the visions St. John records in the Book of Revelation.

“He will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.”  That is, he will glorify the Lord Jesus by helping us to understand who he is and what he taught.  We will never stop learning about him and the Holy Spirit will never cease teaching us about him.

“Everything that the Father has is mine.”  The Father is the Source of all life, human and divine.  The Son has life because the Father has given it to him.  The Father also gives him power, majesty, all knowledge, immortality, and everything else which he possesses.  “for this reason I told you that he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.”  The Father tells the Holy Holy Spirit everything about the Son, and the Holy Spirit, in turn, declares this to the Church so that we can learn about the Lord Jesus, the Church he established, and the Sacraments which he has given us.

While we cannot fully comprehend God or the mysteries pertaining to him, we can learn many things about him, especially that he loves us beyond all telling.

 Tuesday in the Sixth Week of Easter, May 24, 2022

John 16:5-11

Jesus said to his disciples: “Now I am going to the one who sent me, and not one of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ But because I told you this, grief has filled your hearts. 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. And when he comes he will convict the world in regard to sin and righteousness and condemnation: sin, because they do not believe in me; righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will no longer see me; condemnation, because the ruler of this world has been condemned.”

“Now I am going to the one who sent me.”  It seems to me that some of the Last Supper Discourse in John 13-17 might actually have been said by the Lord Jesus shortly before his Ascension into heaven.  The passage used for the Gospel reading for today’s Mass would have made just as much sense then as before his Death.  Because the Lord is teaching about the coming of the Holy Spirit, it would fit the time before the Ascension better than before his Death.  We could explain John’s placing this passage within the Last Supper Discourse by exploring John’s intention in the final chapter of his Gospel, which contains narratives of the Lord’s appearances to his Apostles after his Resurrection.  John wants to emphasize that the Lord, Body as well as Soul, had risen — that he truly rose from the dead — that Peter, flawed as he was, would lead the Apostles and die for the Lord, and that the Lord did not say that John would remain alive until the end of the world.  In order to keep these facts clear, John would have simply moved any teaching about the Holy Spirit to an earlier discourse.  St. Matthew does something similar in his Gospel in that he groups the Lord’s teachings together not so much chronologically as thematically.  Whatever the case may be, the meaning remains the same.

“Now I am going to the one who sent me, and not one of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ ”  Here we might say that this verse makes more sense in a later chapter because the Lord has already told the Apostles that he is going to the Father.   But the Lord Jesus does not say, To whom are you going, but Where are you going.  He is going to heaven.  We may take it for granted that his Father is in heaven but the Lord is still teaching the Apostles that he is the Son of God the Father.  He makes a momentous, unique claim and he has to keep making it because the Apostles find it difficult to understand and accept.  “But because I told you this, grief has filled your hearts.”  What the Apostles do understand is that the Lord whom they love is departing from them.  It must have seemed that he was preparing to abandon them before finishing the work he came to do, which, in their minds, meant restoring the kingdom of Israel.  Grief, confusion, perhaps a little panic.  The Greek word translated as “grief” means something more like “pain” and “distress”.  What would now become of them?

“But I tell you the truth, it is better for you that I go.”  The Lord, knowing what is in their hearts, begins to explain why he must go, and why it is better for them that he does, though they will not see it that way for a long time, if they every do.  “For if I do not go, the Advocate will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.”  The Lord will finish his work on earth by dying on the Cross to take away the sins of the world.  He rises and shows himself to the Apostles in order to bolster their faith and command them to go out to all the world to preach the Gospel.  Because his mission on earth is completed, he returns to the Father, but with the Father sends the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles so that they can carry out his command to go and preach.  It is “better” for them that he return to heaven and send the Holy Spirit because they will achieve their salvation through their missionary work and martyrdom.  If the Lord had remained on earth after his Resurrection, they would never have left him again.  They would have clung to him and the world would not have been evangelized.  He did not want anyone clinging to him when he had a mission for that person.  This is the meaning of telling Mary Magdalene, “Do not cling to me.”

“But if I go, I will send him to you.”  Elsewhere, he says that the Father will send the Holy Spirit.  Both the Father and the Son send the Holy Spirit, for he proceeds from them both.  St. Thomas Aquinas calls the Holy Spirit the “nexus” of the Father and Son, the “connection” or “embrace”.  

“And when he comes he will convict the world in regard to sin and righteousness and condemnation.”  The Greek word translated as “convict” actually means “to expose” or “to rebuke”, which makes more sense in the passage: He will rebuke the world in regard to sin, etc.  The Lord explains, “Sin, because they do not believe in me.”  The Holy Spirit, the Advocate, will rebuke the wicked by showing their lack of belief in God and Christ as the Gospel spreads to people of good will.  This will culminate at the Last Judgment when the Lord Jesus says to the wicked, “Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire, which was prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 25, 41).  “Righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will no longer see me.”  The Holy Spirit will show that the Lord, though risen from the dead, did not appear to the Pharisees and the people of Israel who rejected him, but returned to the bosom of the Father.  He will come again only to judge the living and the dead.  “Condemnation, because the ruler of this world has been condemned.”  The Holy Spirit will reveal through the teaching of the Apostles that the power of the devil over the world is broken.  He will have power now only over those who choose him as their king.

We have received the Holy Spirit in our baptisms and the Sacrament of Confirmation.  We pray that we may remove all the obstacles in our hearts so that he may be effective in our lives as he was in the lives of those believers who first received him.

 Monday in the Sixth Week of Easter, May 23, 2022

John 15: 26–16, 4

Jesus said to his disciples: “When the Advocate comes whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will testify to me. And you also testify, because you have been with me from the beginning. I have told you this so that you may not fall away. They will expel you from the synagogues; in fact, the hour is coming when everyone who kills you will think he is offering worship to God. They will do this because they have not known either the Father or me. I have told you this so that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you.”

The Lord Jesus teaches his Apostles about the “Advocate” (the Greek word also means, “helper”, “comforter”) on the night before he died.  That there is an Advocate comes as a revealed truth to them.  The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, is not mentioned in the Old Law or the Prophets, though he is hinted at.  The truth that God is a Trinity of Persons is revealed only in the New Testament, especially here in the Gospel of St. John.  The Son, who has revealed that is equal to the Father and in union with him, now teaches of an Advocate who “proceeds” from the Father.  The Greek word also means “to come forth” and “to journey out”.  He will “testify” to the Son.  That is, to make a solemn statement, as though in court, of a truth or truths.  The Holy Spirit will bear witness to what the Son said and will “remind” the Apostles of his teachings (cf. John 14, 26).  The Advocate will not, however, appear in the way the Son did, by assuming a human nature, thereby becoming visible and audible.  His testimony will take a different form, working from within the believer.  “And you also testify, because you have been with me from the beginning.”  The Holy Spirit will urge and guide the testimony of the Apostles as they build up the Church, and they be deemed credible witnesses because they were with the Lord “from the beginning” of his Public Life.  “I have told you this so that you may not fall away.  The Greek word translated as “fall away” means “to stumble”, so: That you not stumble, that is, on the road to salvation.

“They will expel you from the synagogues.”  The Lord Jesus warns them that the Jewish leaders will — not might — expel them from their sanctuaries.  This action had serious consequences since it meant being cut off from Jewish society and could result in the loss of one’s business and house.  On the other hand, this caused the early believers to understand that they were not practicing Jews any longer but Christians.  “In fact, the hour is coming when everyone who kills you will think he is offering worship to God.”  Saul of Tarsus certainly thought so before his conversion.  This continues to the present day.  “They will do this because they have not known either the Father or me.”  That is, they have rejected the teachings and commandments of God.  “I have told you this so that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you.”  Jesus is telling us that troubles and persecutions will break out.  We should not panic when this happens because we have been told of it beforehand.  Therefore, we should prepare ourselves by praying for fortitude and greater faith.  And just as the Lord tells us that no one knows the day or the hour when he will come again, we do not know the day or the hour when persecution strikes.

 The Sixth Sunday of Easter, May 22, 2022

John 14:23–29

Jesus said to his disciples: “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; yet the word you hear is not mine but that of the Father who sent me. I have told you this while I am with you. The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid. You heard me tell you, ‘I am going away and I will come back to you.’ If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father; for the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you this before it happens, so that when it happens you may believe.”

“Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.”  The Lord asks so little and yet promises so much in return!  To keep his word is simply to do what is good for us, and what will make us happy.  His “word” is love: love of God and love of neighbor.  The alternative is a selfish love of self and love of the world, which offers only passing pleasures that will leave us incapable of the joys of heaven.  The Lord’s words also convey our dignity as Christians: we are “the dwellings” of the Father and Son.  What sort of dwelling?  St. Paul says, “Know you not that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? But if any man violate the temple of God, him shall God destroy. For the temple of God is holy, which you are” (1 Corinthians 3, 16-17).   We are sacred dwellings of Almighty God: sacred by our consecration to him, sacred by his presence within us.  “Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; yet the word you hear is not mine but that of the Father who sent me.”  There are those who profess to believe in God. But their falsity is clear from their actions.  They may be dwellings, but not of God.

In the second reading for today’s Mass we read: “The angel took me in spirit to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. It gleamed with the splendor of God. Its radiance was like that of a precious stone, like jasper, clear as crystal” (Revelation 21, 10-11).  This is how the Church Victorious in heaven was revealed to St. John in a vision.  Each of us is this in miniature when we are in a state of grace and in love with Almighty God.

 Saturday in the Fifth Week of Easter, May 21, 2022

John 15:18-21

Jesus said to his disciples:  “If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you. Remember the word I spoke to you, ‘No slave is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. And they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know the one who sent me.”

The “world” is understood as the realm of the devil (cf. John 14, 30), which can be defined as a society which despises God and promotes immorality as its highest good; or as fallen human nature, against which we must fight (Romans 7, 15-17). We can overcome the devil and our human nature only with the help of God’s grace.  

“If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first.”  The “world”, understood as the realm of the devil, has hated God from the beginning; as our fallen human nature, it can be said to hate the Lord first because he has come to enable us all to overcome it.  The Lord’s point in saying this is to teach his Apostles that as he, despite all the good he has done, has been persecuted, so will they.  “If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own.”  That is, You would be the world’s own.  “Belonging” to the world means to put pursuing ambition, lust, greed, and other passions above the service of God.  The world’s “love” is the pleasure or other passing things that may be gained through these pursuits.  “Because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you.”  The Apostles and devout Christians do not belong to the world because they seek God alone, and to do his holy will.  Their goal is not a house built on the sands of time that will soon be swept away, but a house founded on the Rock of Jesus Christ, a home in heaven with him (cf. Matthew 7, 24-27).  “I have chosen you out of the world.”  The Lord calls all people “out of the world”, but they are few who come to him: “Many are called but few are chosen”, that is, choose to follow the call (Matthew 22, 14).  St. John emphasizes this choice of answering God’s call by referring to Christians as “the elect” (2 John 1, 1).  “The world hates you.”  The devil fights against the baptized through temptations and the persecutions he rouses up.  Fallen human nature rebels against our attempts to discipline it, to master it so that we may fully accomplish the will of God.

“If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.”  That is, people who have given themselves up to amoral or anti-moral living and see any reminder of God as a direct attack upon them and their lifestyles.  They are very sensitive to the slightest hint of religion and burst into hysterics when they catch sight of it, or suspect it.  This can result in personal attacks on believers and even outright persecution.  The Apostles have seen people — even in his own home town — trying to kill the Lord on various occasions before, but will only understand what he means here with his crucifixion.

“If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.”  God provides each human person, throughout his life, all that is necessary to be saved.  God sends inspirations, messengers, and miracles into the lives of all, so that they might repent of their evil and embrace the truth.  Anyone who comes to believe in the Lord Jesus will keep the word of the Apostles through the commandments which they have passed on.

“And they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know the one who sent me.”  The wicked of the world will hate and persecute believers on account of the fact that “God saves” — the meaning of “Jesus” — those who love him and follow his commandments.  The hatred and persecution, then, is directed at God through those who adhere to him.  God’s grace supports those who suffer on his account, and he rewards them with the highest places in heaven: “And I saw thrones and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: the souls of them that were beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God and who had not adored the beast nor his image nor received his character on their foreheads or in their hands” (Revelation 20, 4).  “Because they do not know the one who sent me.”  That is, they rejected the One who sent the Son.

In our own struggles against temptations and the urging of our fallen human nature we have an Advocate interceding for us with the Father (cf. 1 John 2, 1), who has said, “Have confidence. I have overcome the world” (John 16, 33).

 Friday in the Fifth Week of Easter, May 20, 2022

John 15:12-17

Jesus said to his disciples: “This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father. It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you. This I command you: love one another.”

The Lord Jesus continues to speak to his Apostles during the Last Supper.  He speaks very calmly even with his arrest, Passion, and Death nearly upon him.  Ever the servant, he teaches his Apostles to till last possible moment.

“This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.”  His previous commandments, such as against lust and regarding the Sabbath, fulfilled the laws of the Old Covenant and so were in that sense were not new or  peculiarly his own.  This commandment, however, is.  The Lord does not merely say, Love one another.  He says, “Love one another as I love you.”  They have known his love in many ways over the course of the three years of his Public Life.  They will see the great outpouring of his love as he hangs upon the Cross, and they will know it after Pentecost when the Holy Spirit enlightens them.  They will understand that they are to love each other fully and unconditionally as the Lord has: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”  

“You are my friends if you do what I command you.”  Friends do not normally lay down commandments for their friends, but the Lord’s commandment is to love.  We might wonder why he thought it necessary to issue a commandment to love.  Love is so desirable that everyone wants to give and receive it.  The key here is that he commands us to love as he did.  In a way, it is a permission or an exhortation, but love to the degree that the Lord intends us to have requires a commandment because it is completely self-emptying.

“I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing.”  The Lord does not refer to his Apostles as “slaves” during his Public Life and the revelation that he considered them slaves might have unsettled them.  They had been slaves as compared to him, their Creator, infinite in power and majesty.  He now raises them to the level of friends — an almost impossible leap in the society of the time.  He calls them “friends” because he is revealing to them his inmost thoughts, not simply teaching them about the Kingdom of God: “I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.”

“It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you.”  It May seem to us that when the Lord called Peter and Andrew from their fishing boat that they chose to follow him, but in reality they were choosing to obey his call.  It was as if they had been waiting for his call and went immediately when it came.  They had been chosen from all eternity to be the Apostles of the Lord and they had been created with this vocation embedded in them.  They could have chosen not to obey, but they would have gone against their nature and they would have regretted their decision the rest of their lives.  The same is true for us.  Our vocation is embedded within us, whether as husbands, wives, parents, single people, priests, or religious.  Because it is embedded we can see signs of it in our preferences, our choices, and our predispositions, and others who watch us closely over the years can see these signs too.  It is up to us to discern our vocations and to follow them.

“And appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain.”  In whatever vocation for which we are made, our work is to go and “bear fruit that will remain.”  That is, to hand on the Faith.  We can do this within our calling in a multitude of ways.  The fruit will “remain” when we care for it.  It would be a mistake to help a person convert and then not continue to help that person grow in the Faith, or to have a child baptized and then not raise the child in the Church.  It may happen that at some time the fruit we have cared for rebels against God and his Church despite our best efforts.  Then we should persevere in prayer for that person and to maintain a good example.

“So that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you.”  The Lord encourages us to pray for the graces, the virtues, and the favorable circumstances that will allow us to work for the lasting fruit he desires.  His intention is for the salvation of all people and so he will hardly refuse what we need in order to do our part in accomplishing this.

“This I command you: love one another.”  So important is this commandment that the Lord repeats it.  It is the fulfillment of the Old Covenant commandment to love one another, for now we have the revelation of the Son of God and so, with his grace, we can do more than to love one another as we love ourselves.  We can love as the Lord Jesus loves.

 Thursday in the Fifth Week of Easter, May 19, 2022

John 15:9-11

Jesus said to his disciples: “As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy might be in you and your joy might be complete.”

Perhaps the Lord Jesus most effectively made it clear to his Apostles that while he was the Messiah, he was not the one taught by the Pharisees, by telling them that he loved them.  It is hard to imagine a military or political leader telling his followers that he loved them.  Most of the time, such leaders prefer to build up an aura of fear around themselves.  The Lord’s profession of love sets him quite apart from these.  And this one who loved them showed himself no ordinary leader.  He had spent himself in works of mercy up and down Galilee and Judea, so much so that St. John wrote, “If they [the Lord’s works] were written every one, the world itself, I think, would not be able to contain the books that should be written” (John 21, 25).  This was also the one who had astounded them with a powerful miracle to save their lives: “What manner of man is this, for the winds and the sea obey him?” (Matthew 8, 27).  

“As the Father loves me, so I also love you.”  They have seen his love for the Father in his relentless work and in his nights of prayer.  They will see it perfectly revealed in his dying on the Cross in obedience to the Father’s will.  They can surmise from this how great the Father’s love for his Son is that results in such a response.  The Lord states that as the Father has loved him with an infinite torrent of love, so does he, the Son, love his Apostles.  From this we also know how much he loves us.  “Remain in my love.”  That is, “abide” in my love.  The Greek word also means “to lodge” and “to await”.  To “abide” in the love of Jesus does not mean to stay in a static position with him.  Our love is to grow as we accept his invitation to intimacy with him, and we should live in expectation of the full realization of his love to be revealed to us in heaven.

“If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love.”  To keep the commandments of the Lord is both a sign of our love for him and a way to deepen our love for him.  Day after day we strip off our love for worldly things and pleasures until our sole delight is the Lord Jesus.  “Just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.”  So has the Lord Jesus stripped himself of the form of his divinity — “emptying himself” — out of obedience to his Father (cf. Philippians 2, 7).  

“I have told you this so that my joy might be in you and your joy might be complete.”  The lover delights in knowing that his beloved knows of his love and that his beloved rejoices on account of it.  The greatest human experience is to know that one is loved.  The Lord Jesus deeply desires us to know this, and that there is nothing he would not do for us.  This should be our response to knowing his love, to seek to do all things for him who has so loved us.

 Wednesday in the Fifth Week of Easter, May 18, 2022

John 15:1-8

Jesus said to his disciples: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower. He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and everyone that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit. You are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to you. Remain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing. Anyone who does not remain in me will be thrown out like a branch and wither; people will gather them and throw them into a fire and they will be burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you. By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.”

In the Gospel reading for today’s Mass, Jesus continues to instruct his Apostles during the Last Supper.  He speaks to them mostly about their future, the Church, and the Holy Spirit.  

“I am the true vine.”  By “the true vine” the Lord means not that he is like a grave vine but that grape vines are a little like him.  The grape vine was created as a way for us to understand the Son of God.  “My Father is the vine grower.”  The Son shows the union of Father and Son and their distinct works.  “He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and everyone that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit.”  The production of fruit shows which branches belong to the vine and which do not.  The Vine Grower, the Father, “takes away” the false branches that do not bear fruit.  The Greek word translated here as “ to take away” means “to lift up”, “to raise”, and “to kill”.  This speaks of the severe fate that comes to the useless branch.  The Father also “pruned” the fruitful branches so that they may bear even more fruit.  That is, extraneous growths would be cut off from the branch so that the earth’s nourishment is not wasted on these.  “You are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to you.”  The Apostles are pruned in the sense that the Lord has prepared them to go forth to the world to spread the Gospel: his word has caused them to become detached from their former way of life.  The branches that bring forth fruit are those who belong to Christ through baptism and who work for the conversion of the world through their words, actions, prayers, and sacrifices.  Not all believers are called to do this in the same way.  Some, like St. Peter Claver, are called to be missionaries; some, like St. Therese of Lisieux, are called to pray for missionaries and for conversions.  All of us can give good example to others and explain, if only in basic form, the teachings of the Church to those who are curious.  The branches that do not do this show themselves to not really belong to Christ, though they may have appeared to.  A grape vine in the winter looks like a dead bunch of weeds.  Weeds, in fact, will wind their way around it so that it becomes difficult to distinguish the vine from the weeds.  It is in the spring and summer that this can be done, for the dead looking branches of the vine come alive and put forth fruit.  Then it is safe to clear out the weeds from it.

“Remain in me, as I remain in you.”  That is, “abide” in me, as I abide in you.  It is not a matter of studying the Lord’s teachings so as to hand them on, but it is necessary for the one who spreads the Gospel to have intimacy with him in prayer: “Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me.”  The Greek word means “abide”, as in “to continue living with”.

“I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.”  As branches, we depended on him, the vine, for everything.  He supplies us with the nourishment that we need in order to live and even to flourish. 

“Anyone who does not remain in me will be thrown out like a branch and wither; people will gather them and throw them into a fire and they will be burned.”  We see in the Lord’s words his zeal for souls.  It was for this that he came into the world and gave up his life in a terrible Death.  His zeal so drove him that even on the Cross he was preaching the Gospel, through his suffering, leading one of the thieves crucified with him to repent from his sins.  He exhorts us to have zeal for souls in the same manner, which we exercise according to our individual callings.

“If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you.”  That is, whatever we ask for in our work of spreading the Gospel, which we do for the glory of God: “By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.”

It is worth repeating that not all of us can be missionaries overseas or on the front lines working for the conversion of the world.  Most of us are called to do the work of prayer and of making sacrifices for this cause. As Mother Theresa used to say to her lay volunteers, “What I can do, you cannot, but what you can do, I cannot.  But together we can make something beautiful for God.”