Thursday in the Eighth Week of Ordinary Time, June 1, 2023

Mark 10, 46-52

As Jesus was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a sizable crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind man, the son of Timaeus, sat by the roadside begging. On hearing that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me.” And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he kept calling out all the more, “Son of David, have pity on me.” Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” So they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take courage; get up, Jesus is calling you.” He threw aside his cloak, sprang up, and came to Jesus. Jesus said to him in reply, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man replied to him, “Master, I want to see.” Jesus told him, “Go your way; your faith has saved you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed him on the way.

Today’s Gospel Reading is taken from the middle section of St. Mark’s Gospel, which details the Lord’s last journey to Jerusalem.  As Mark tells it, Jesus has just spoken to his Apostles James and John about who would sit at his right and left in the Kingdom of Heaven.  Just after this, Mark abruptly declares, “And they came to Jericho” (Mark 10, 46).  Mark does not tell us what they did at Jericho but, in the very same verse when Mark says they came to Jericho he says, “As Jesus was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a sizable crowd.”  So much we would like to know about what the Lord said and did in places like Jericho, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, the first city in the Promised Land to fall to the  Israelites under Joshua after their forty years in the wilderness!  We have to treasure all the more what we do have of the records of the Lord’s life and teaching!

But for St. Mark, the main event at Jericho was what the Lord did outside the city, and to highlight it he does not tell us what he did inside of it.  He begins very directly: “Bartimaeus, a blind man, the son of Timaeus, sat by the roadside begging.”  Since Luke, who also tells the story, does not name the beggar whereas Mark does, we can conclude that Peter, from whose lips Mark drew his Gospel, must have known him.  He probably came to know him after the Resurrection as he began to preach the Gospel in Galilee and that the former beggar was now a prominent Christian.  Mark clarifies the beggar’s identity by adding “the son of Timaeus” for his Greek speaking audience who would not have known that “Bartimaeus” meant exactly that.  “On hearing that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, ‘Jesus, son of David, have pity on me.’ ”  The beggar addresses Jesus as the Messiah, “the son of David” who was going to restore the kingdom.  At the same time, he believes that Jesus can heal him — the Messiah promised by the Pharisees was not a healer.  We should notice that Mark uses the phrase “he began to cry out and say”.  This is a Hebrew construction not normally found in Greek literature.  Mark is thinking in Hebrew and writing in Greek.  He makes no attempt at a smooth Greek style.  That may be because he does not have the skill to accomplish that.  But his rough Greek is a sign of his ancient witness and to the freshness of his testimony to us.

“And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he kept calling out all the more.”  The crowd may have rebuked him because they deemed it unfitting for the Son of David to mix with a common beggar.  We might wonder why the crowd did not simply ignore him.  But it is customary for those who have a certain opinion of their worth to push down other who do not measure up to their standards.  As the Lord had said before entering Jericho, “You know that they who seem to rule over the Gentiles lord it over them” (Mark 10, 42).  Mark, who sees irony throughout the Lord’s life among us, probably saw it here too.  The members of the crowd who thought themselves such perfect believers are actually acting like the Gentiles.  But we see the beggar’s persistence, his perseverance, which is one of the most notable signs of the Christian: “He that shall persevere to the end, he shall be saved” (Matthew 24, 13).  

“Take courage; get up, Jesus is calling you.”  We see how fickle the crowd is, a trait common to crowds everywhere.  Or, not all in the crowd told the man to be quiet and these now encourage him.  It is like the devils who tell us to be quiet and not to pray, and the angels who urge us to do so and assist us.  “He threw aside his cloak, sprang up, and came to Jesus.”  Bartimaeus shows his readiness to follow Jesus by disposing of his one possession.  This contrasts with the rich man who would not follow Jesus because “he had many possessions” (Mark 10, 22).  He “sprang up” which reminds us of how the rich man came running up to the Lord.  Of course, the rich man slunk away from him when the Lord told him to follow him, but the beggar goes with Jesus.  “What do you want me to do for you?”  The Lord knows what he wants just as he knows what we want before we ask it.  But he wants the beggar and he wants us to cooperate in our own salvation and so he admonishes us to pray.  “Master, I want to see.”  The word in the Greek text is rabbouni, a transliteration of the Hebrew, meaning, “my master”, “my teacher”.  Mark does not translate the Hebrew word which Bartimaeus said into Greek but takes it directly into the text, just using Greek letters. “Go your way; your faith has saved you.”  The Lord replied in a similar way to the woman with the hemorrhage who thought only to touch his garment to be healed.  By quoting Jesus in these instances and not abridging his account, Mark shows the necessity of faith for salvation, of which these cures were signs.

“Immediately he received his sight and followed him on the way.”  The beggar received his sight straightway with no time intervening between the words of the Lord and the reception of sight.  Mark does not tell us of the beggar exclaiming or of any reaction from the crowd, only that Bartimaeus  “followed him on the way”.  Just as Peter’s mother-in-law began to serve the Lord the moment he cured her from her fever, so now the beggar does not hesitate to follow the Lord.  He uses his health for the purpose for which it was given him.  When we use what we have for the purpose for which God has given it to us, then we too follow the Lord.

 The Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Wednesday 31, 2023

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, celebrating the Virgin Mary’s stay with her relative Elizabeth during the latter’s pregnancy, made more difficult by her advanced age.  Mary herself was with child at the time with the Son of God.  The Franciscans first celebrated this Feast in the late 1200’s and it spread through their influence to various dioceses, though celebrated on different days.  In 1389, Pope Urban VI decreed that this Feast be kept by the whole Church.  He hoped by this for the Church to obtain the graces necessary to end what became known as the Great Western Schism, which lasted from 1378 to 1417, a period which at one time saw three men claiming the papal throne.  The Schism began when the Roman crowd, fearing yet another French pope who would prefer to live in southern France, demonstrated vigorously during the conclave that elected Urban VI.  Following the conclave and the coronation, a reaction set in among the cardinals, especially those from France, and they decided that the election of Urban was not valid because they had felt coerced by the crowd.  The French cardinals then elected a French cleric who took the name Clement VII, leading to Urban VI and the anti-pope Clement excommunicating each other.  Subsequent attempts to fix this mess backfired so that for a few years three men claimed to be pope.  After years of exhausting turmoil, the electors present at the Council of Constance deposed two of the three claimants and received the resignation of another.  They then elected to the papacy a bishop who took the name Martin V.

“Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah.”  St. Luke does not say that Mary set out immediately after she received the message of the Angel Gabriel, but that once she did set out, she traveled “in haste” or “with diligence”.  It would seem that following the Annunciation she told her spouse, St. Joseph, what had happened, and that she had conceived by the Holy Spirit (in his dream while Mary was away, the angel confirms what Mary had told him, saying that “that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1, 20).  She would also have waited for a caravan to head in the direction of Elizabeth’s house.  It is possible that a relative traveled with her, for women did not travel alone in that time and place.  From deep within Galilee, she would have traveled into Judea.  The country there featured rocky hills and gullies.  Very picturesque, but tiring to cover on foot.  The town where Elizabeth lived was situated a few miles from Jerusalem.  “Where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.”  Many artistic depictions of the Visitation show it as taking place  outside the house, but Luke clearly informs us that Mary greeted Elizabeth inside of it.  Elizabeth did not break her withdrawal from society until her baby was born.  

“When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb.”  Mary always saw herself as the Handmaid of the Lord and habitually looked for ways to serve.  At the indication of Elizabeth’s pregnancy by the angel, Mary saw her place as at her relative’s side and so she went to her, not thinking of herself and of her much more consequential pregnancy.  When Elizabeth’s child leaped in her womb, though, Elizabeth knew, through the Holy Spirit, that Mary was the one to be honored and served.  Right away, she acknowledged Mary as set over her: “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?”  Mary, we should note, does not answer this question for she is still transfixed that the Almighty God had chosen her to conceive and bear his Son.

“Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.”  Probably the exchange between the women recorded by St. Luke was filled with pauses and silences as the two women, whose wombs contained mysteries, looked upon each other in recognition and joy.  Elizabeth would have paused after her question before uttering this blessing.  Her words were unintentionally ironic, for her husband, the priest of the Lord, had not believed the words of Gabriel to him in the Temple, but here this young woman believed something far more demanding and tremendous than what Zechariah had failed at.  Luke shows by this the limits to which the Jewish priesthood could go in terms of faith.on the brink of the Messianic Age, it falters, and with the tearing of the high priest’s garments (cf. Matthew 26, 65) it ends.  As if to demonstrate this, John the Baptist does not take up the service in the Temple as a priest, the son of a priest.  Instead, he goes off to the wilderness and prepares the way for the true High Priest, whose sandal strap he did not dare to unfasten.

In the Virgin Mary’s Visitation we see how utterly Mary sought to serve even to denigrating herself.  Her soul always magnified the Lord and her spirit always rejoiced in God her Savior, and for this reason was glad to serve him in any way she could.

 Tuesday in the Eighth Week of Ordinary Time, May 30, 2023

Mark 10, 28-31

Peter began to say to Jesus, ‘“We have given up everything and followed you.” Jesus said, “Amen, I say to you, there is no one who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the sake of the Gospel who will not receive a hundred times more now in this present age: houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and eternal life in the age to come. But many that are first will be last, and the last will be first.”

The present Gospel Reading follows yesterday’s Reading as part of the same episode.  The Lord Jesus has just told a man who has come up to him in earnest in order to ask him what he must do to be saved.  The Lord tells him to sell the property to which he is much devoted because it is a hindrance to his salvation and then to come and follow him.  So many recognize that the Lord alone is their salvation but when he gives them clear direction in answer to their prayers they bridle and refuse to go forward.  They want salvation, but they cannot or will not stop wanting something else more.  In this case it is covetousness, but for others it is fornication, worldly ambition, and pride.  We cling to these as though they were our very flesh and cannot imagine life without them.

The previous Gospel Reading ended with the Lord pronouncing, “Children, how hard it is to enter the Kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the Kingdom of God.”  That is, we make it hard for ourselves to enter the Kingdom of God through our attachments.  The Lord particularly cites the rich, since the man who came to him had many possessions.  Peter, hearing this, is alarmed.  In understanding his alarm it pays us to keep in mind that at this point Peter and his fellow Apostles believe that Jesus is the promised Messiah who would restore the kingdom of Israel.  He has been taught from his youth by the Pharisees that that was the Messiah’s mission.  He was to be a latter-day Joshua, overrunning the strongholds of the Romans.  Thus, Peter and the others had their eyes on great prizes for following Jesus that they would receive when he was victorious.  These would be worth giving up the comparatively little that they had to begin with.  These words of Jesus then strike Peter as telling him and the others that no such rewards would be given them: those who are rich will not have a part in the new Israel.  We can hear the dismay and perhaps a touch of anger in Peter’s outburst: “We have given up everything and followed you.”  It is as though he feels he is being played for a sucker.

The Lord probably did not reply immediately.  Given Peter’s feelings, we should think that the Lord gave him a few moments so that he could hear his reply.  “Amen, I say to you, there is no one who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the sake of the Gospel who will not receive a hundred times more now in this present age.”  The Lord assures his Apostles that they will indeed receive an abundant reward, and he does so in concrete terms they can understand.  No one wants to work long hours for many years for some vague or abstract reward.  Then the Lord adds, “With persecutions, and eternal life in the age to come.”  He does not hide how much they will have to endure for their reward, and also promises them eternal life for this, a prize far greater than any number of “houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands”.  In this way the Lord contrasts the response of the rich man with their own.  Of course the path to life requires sacrifice.  It does not fall into the lap as the rich man thought it should.  Neither should the Apostles think that, but recognize, accept, and resolve to endure persecution first so that they might truly enjoy the fruits of their labors later.

 Monday in the Eighth Week of Ordinary Time, May 29, 2023

Mark 10, 17-27

As Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran up, knelt down before him, and asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus answered him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: You shall not kill; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness; you shall not defraud; honor your father and your mother.” He replied and said to him, “Teacher, all of these I have observed from my youth.” Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said to him, “You are lacking in one thing. Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” At that statement, his face fell, and he went away sad, for he had many possessions. Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the Kingdom of God!” The disciples were amazed at his words. So Jesus again said to them in reply, “Children, how hard it is to enter the Kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the Kingdom of God.” They were exceedingly astonished and said among themselves, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “For men it is impossible, but not for God. All things are possible for God.”

Previous to the new Missal in 1970, the period or season following Pentecost was known as “Time after Pentecost”, and so there was “the Third Monday after Pentecost”, and the like.  This very distinct time was separate from the weeks between Epiphany and Lent, which was called the “Time after Epiphany”, and then the weeks immediately preceding Lent as “Septuagesima”, “Sextuagesima” — seventy and sixty days before Easter, respectively, a period now called “Ordinary Time”, just as also the Time after Pentecost has been reduced to Ordinary Time.  This term lacks precision and also takes away from the meanings of these two separate seasons, the Time after Epiphany and the Time after Pentecost.  The term “ordinary” simple refers to ordinal numbers, the way these weeks are counted.  It is a very generic term.  The Time after Pentecost, however, tells us that this is the time of grace, of spreading the Gospel to the whole world as Christ has commanded us.  This season leads us to that of Advent, the season immediately preceding the Solemnity of Christmas in which we celebrate the historical fact of the Birth of the Son of God, and look forward to his second coming, when he will judge us for how we have spread his Gospel.

“As Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran up, knelt down before him, and asked him, etc.”  The Lord and his Apostles had equipped themselves with supplies for their next missionary trip.  These would have included water, bread, and probably some dried fish.  The Lord May or may not have announced to the Apostles where they were going — as we know from our own lives, Jesus does not usually disclose his plans for us ahead of time.  They were departing from Capharnaum.  As they set out, a man came running up to them before they got very far.  His running provokes questions, for if he were a citizen of the town, he could have talked to Jesus at any time he resided there.  Also, his running suggests that his question was an urgent one.  He needed an answer now.  He could not wait until the Lord returned and only the Lord could answer it.  He fell to his knees before the Lord, which was the posture of a slave before his master, and asked, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  He asks a very necessary question.  He also addresses Jesus in a way that must have raised eyebrows.  Even the Lord asks him what he means.  The man calls Jesus “good teacher”.  He does not call him “righteous teacher” or simply “teacher”.  The Greek word is agathos, which means “intrinsically good”, as when the Lord says, “Every good tree brings forth good fruit” (Matthew 7, 17).  This is very different from, say, “righteous”.  The Lord points this out to the man: “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.”  The Lord is inviting the man to make a true profession of faith.  The fact that the man does not do this may indicate that his exclamation was an impulsive one, or simply that the man lacked the courage or the faith to make this kind of confession.  Based on how he acts later on, we might think it to be the second case.

“You know the commandments.”  The Lord then enumerates some of the Jewish Law for him.  He does this to tease him, to get him to reveal what he really wants to ask.  “Teacher, all of these I have observed from my youth.”  He has been an observant Jew and yet he feels in his heart that it is not enough.  God himself has revealed this to him.  Now God will tell him what more he must do, what he calls him to do to find eternal life and not merely to obtain the promises of Moses.  “Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”  The “one thing” he was lacking was to follow Jesus, and in order to do that he must irrevocably leave all his belongings behind.  The Apostles had done this.  But because of the man’s severe attachment to his things, the Lord commands him to sell them.  In that way, nothing holds him back.  All he will have is Jesus.  “At that statement, his face fell, and he went away sad, for he had many possessions.”  He could not imagine a life without his things.  This man signifies people who commit some malicious act against another person and are willing to apologize later and even to sit through meetings with counselors or physicians to exhibit a willingness to change, but who do not make up for what they did or seriously make an effort to change their behavior.  It is so part of who they understand themselves to be that the idea of actually reforming makes no sense.  It is as though a pig were being told to become a human, as far as they are concerned.

“Jesus, looking at him, loved him.”  All the love the Lord Jesus poured out for him made no difference to him.  His heart had no room for his love and so could not return it.  His heart had room only for his things.

 The Solemnity of Pentecost, Sunday, May 28, 2020

The following passage from the Book of Revelation helps us to understand what this feast means to us believers: “After these things, I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that they should not blow upon the earth nor upon the sea nor on any tree. And I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun, having the seal of the living God. And he cried with a loud voice to the four angels to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, saying: Hurt not the earth nor the sea nor the trees, till we seal the servants of our God on their foreheads. And I heard the number of them that were signed. An hundred forty-four thousand were signed, of every tribe of the children of Israel” (Revelation 7, 1-4).

The “four angels” restraining the four winds is the grace of God which prevents us from being overwhelmed by natural and supernatural forces.  The “seal” is the indelible character which each believer receives upon Baptism, and which is strengthened through Confirmation, and is altered with Holy Orders.  The tribes “of the children of Israel” signifies the Church, spread throughout the world.  The number “one hundred and forty-four thousand” means everyone who has true faith in the Lord Jesus.  Thus, we see that through sin, the natural world is subject to disorders which result in famine, earthquakes, fires, disease, terrible storms, and other afflictions, including death.  Likewise, through sin, the original harmony between humans breaks down and so we have quarrels, assaults, riots, and wars.  Similarly, through sin, our fallen human nature is prone to further sin, denial of God, delusions, and the attacks of the devil and his angels.  God is not under any obligation to protect us from the consequences of our actions, and yet he does protect those who give themselves to him as his subjects and who promise to carry out his commandments.  These receive Baptism, and are “signed” in such a way that they are re-created in the Sacrament, making them significantly distinct from all others.  Baptism and the graces that follow from it help protect a person from the consequences of sin, the worst of which is death.  While this seal does not remove the baptized person from this world so that he does not suffer the effects of sin, he is able to overcome them in faith, to see meaning in them, to accept them as the crosses which we must carry after the Lord Jesus, and, in the end, to triumph over death in the Resurrection.  All this is given to the believer who gives himself to God.  It comes to him through the power of the Holy Spirit, whose descent of the Apostles and the Blessed Virgin Mary we celebrate today.

 Saturday in the Seventh Week of Easter, May 27, 2023

John 21, 20-25

Peter turned and saw the disciple following whom Jesus loved, the one who had also reclined upon his chest during the supper and had said, “Master, who is the one who will betray you?” When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about him?” Jesus said to him, “What if I want him to remain until I come? What concern is it of yours? You follow me.” So the word spread among the brothers that that disciple would not die. But Jesus had not told him that he would not die, just “What if I want him to remain until I come? What concern is it of yours?”  It is this disciple who testifies to these things and has written them, and we know that his testimony is true. There are also many other things that Jesus did, but if these were to be described individually, I do not think the whole world would contain the books that would be written.

“Peter turned and saw the disciple following whom Jesus loved, the one who had also reclined upon his chest during the supper.”  From ancient times the Church has understood this disciple as John, the son of Zebedee and the brother of James.  This John is mentioned by name in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and is included by the Lord Jesus in a privileged subgroup of the Apostles which consisted of him, his brother James, and Peter.  Jesus took these apart to witness some of his most astounding miracles, such as the raising of the daughter of Jairus from the dead and the Transfiguration.  Jesus also takes them with him apart from the others when he prays in the Garden of Gethsemane.  Mark tells us that Jesus had a nickname for James and John, calling them “the sons of thunder”.  And yet, in the Gospel of John, his never never arises, and the only time we are advised of his existence at all comes when, after the Resurrection, “the sons of Zebedee” go fishing with Peter and four other Apostles.  The Gospel according to John has been held since the days of the early Church to have been written by this John, the Apostle.  We might ask why John does not mention his own name in the Gospel.  But Luke, the author of a Gospel and a fellow missionary with St. Paul, never mentions himself by name even when he is part of the story.  When he writes of actions in which he takes part, he simply writes “we” did this.  He minimizes his part to the point of anonymity.  However, Theophilus, whom Luke addresses as the recipient of the Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, knows who he is and so does not need Luke to point himself out by name.  And Luke, who is writing about the Apostles, does not make the story about him.  John seems to act in the same way.  The people for whom he was writing his Gospel originally knew very well who he was, and John is so unwilling to move the spotlight off Jesus that he mentions himself only as a witness to the truth about the Lord’s life and identity.  Because he wants his readers to know that Jesus could be touched, heard, and seen, he allows himself, without using his name, to tell that he had touched, heard, and seen him.  And this is what the true disciple does: “He must increase and I must decrease” (John 3, 30).  The disciple lets Jesus so shine forth from his words and actions that he himself disappears into him and the Lord alone is visible.  This is a work of grace.

“Lord, what about him?” John must have written his Gospel before the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.  We might say that he wrote it after the martyrdom of the first bishop of Jerusalem, James the son of Alphaeus in 62 A.D. because the conversation John records between Jesus and Peter seems to deal with the question of whether the end of the world will come before the death of the last Apostle.  James the son of Alphaeus and John would have been the last Apostles left in Jerusalem and perhaps in both Judea and Galilee.  The other Apostles had already been martyred (Peter and Paul died in Rome around the time James died in .Jerusalem) or gone far abroad so that of the Twelve, only John was left.  John answered their question with the words of Jesus: “What if I want him to remain until I come?”  That is, the Lord does not say that the world would end before the last Apostle died, but neither did he say that it would: “You follow me.”  The disciple of the Lord should be aware that the world will end and he should prepare for it, but not be obsessed by the fact.  He should concentrate on following the Lord and doing his will on each day of life the Lord gives him.

“It is this disciple who testifies to these things and has written them, and we know that his testimony is true.”  It was fashionable for nineteenth and twentieth century scholars to sniff at these words and declare that they prove John the Apostle did not write the Gospel because of the “we know” and “his testimony”.  These same scholars allege that the Gospels, as we now have them, are the result of intensive editorial work by communities of believers in the generation or two after the Apostles.  Yet, it does not seem to them that an editor could have added this to the Gospel John had written.  In fact, the person to whom John dictated his Gospel could have added these words.  This seems likely since the Gospels, once they were written, were quickly copied and recopied.  If this gloss had appeared only in a later copy, it would not have been found in earlier ones.  But the earliest copies we have contain it.  And the stamp of the Holy See affirms that these words are divinely inspired and canonical just as are all the other words in the Gospel.

“There are also many other things that Jesus did, but if these were to be described individually, I do not think the whole world would contain the books that would be written.”  This is a most marvelous way to end this Gospel and the collection of the four Gospels.  It opens up for us the broad horizon of the life of the Lord and his tireless campaign to bring eternal life to the people of this world.  When we read the Gospels, not only should we pay attention to all that they tell us of the Lord, but all that, out of necessity, they do not tell us: the story of how Mary Magdalene’s seven demons were cast out, and what the Lord said and did in Chorazin and Bethany, for instance.  So many powerful words, so many astounding works.  Of all that the Gospels could tell us, we have only that which is strictly necessary for us.  All else that we would like to know, we must wait for until it is revealed to us on the last day.

 Friday in the Seventh Week of Easter, May 29, 2020

John 21, 15-19

After Jesus had revealed himself to his disciples and eaten breakfast with them, he said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” Simon Peter answered him, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” He then said to Simon Peter a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Simon Peter answered him, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.” He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was distressed that he had said to him a third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. Amen, amen, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” He said this signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God. And when he had said this, he said to him, “Follow me.”

The traditional understanding of these verses is that Jesus is giving Peter the chance to make right his denial of him on the night of his arrest.  I think that the Lord is testing him, too, and preparing him for the trials to come, since after the third time Peter tells the Lord he loves him, Jesus speaks of Peter’s own martyrdom in the future.  We find it irritating to be asked the same question over and over, especially when the answer seems clear to us.  Here, additionally, the Lord pricks the raw wound of Peter’s guilt in a most trying way.  Peter is well-aware that the Lord knows of his denials: “And the Lord turning looked on Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, as he had said: Before the cock crows, you shall deny three times” (Luke 22, 61).  Peter quails from the pricking, but he does not run away, as he did when he saw the Lord looking at him after the denials.  He is shaken, but he does not fall apart.  We see the hurt that Peter experiences here when we read that “Peter was distressed.”  The Greek here is much stronger: elupeíthei, which means “to be in great pain”, “to grieve”, or “to mourn”.  It is related to a word used in the Septuagint to describe the pains of childbirth (cf. Genesis 3, 16).  Peter was not feeling mere sadness; his heart was breaking.  It is as though what he has dreaded has come true, that his Lord no longer loves him.  The Greek verb here is in the imperfect tense, indicating that he “began to grieve”, or that “Peter was grieving”.  The imperfect is used to a show that an action was commencing or that it was continued for some time, as opposed to one that began and then was completed: “John was going to the store”, as opposed to “John went to the store”.

Jesus does not seem to respond to Peter’s grief.  He repeats his command, “Feed my sheep.”  In fact, this is exactly what Peter needs to hear.  Jesus treats him as a servant upon whom he can rely.  Jesus does not tell him to help the other shepherds, or to do some other kind of work, but tells him to feed them, to lead them to good pasture.  Jesus is saying, Nothing has changed between us.  You are still the rock upon whom I will build my Church.  But then he speaks to him of how he will die, that he will be taken unwillingly to a place where he will “stretch out” his hands, in his own crucifixion.  We might wonder at him being led “where you do not want to go.”  St. Paul talks gladly of laying down his life for the Lord: “For to me, to live is Christ: and to die is gain (cf. Philippians 1, 21).  An early tradition explains that Peter, condemned to crucifixion, did not feel worthy to die as his Lord had died, leading his executioners to crucify him upside down.  The words of Jesus, “Follow me” seem to call Peter to share in his Lord’s own Death.  Peter faces a choice here, just as he did three years before on the Sea of Galilee.  And he makes the same choice now as he did then.  And strengthened by the Holy Spirit, he will be able to carry out the promises he had made Jesus at the Last Supper: “I will lay down my life for you” (John 13, 37).

 Thursday in the Seventh Week of Easter, May 25, 2020

John 17:20-26

Lifting up his eyes to heaven, Jesus prayed saying: “I pray not only for these, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me. And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that you sent me, and that you loved them even as you loved me. Father, they are your gift to me. I wish that where I am they also may be with me, that they may see my glory that you gave me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world. Righteous Father, the world also does not know you, but I know you, and they know that you sent me. I made known to them your name and I will make it known, that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them.”

The unity for which the Lord prayed on this occasion and for which he continues to pray even now before his Father in heaven, is not a physical one but one of grace.  As 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.  

Another sign of this unity is Christian marriage, at the beginning of which the man and woman make vows to each other before God, and together to God, for their union to be exclusive, to be lifelong, and to be open to children.  In consequence of these vows, God joins the man and the woman together so that they cannot be separated.  As the Lord Jesus says, “They are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder” (Matthew 19, 6).  This unity lasts them the rest of their lives on earth.  No amount of secular intervention can alter this reality.  It is a gift from God, who does not take back his gifts.  

When God bestows unity upon us, we belong to him, as in baptism, or to another, as in marriage, without condition.  Because of this, the unity exists despite physical separation, sickness, old age, injury, confusion, or any other affliction to which we mortal humans are prone.  No matter what happens to us, God preserves the unity for us, for our good.  This allows us to live free from the fear of being rejected by the other.  It underlies the words of Jesus to the women at his Resurrection (Matthew 28, 10), and of the Angel to Mary at the Annunciation (Luke 1, 30): “Do not be afraid.”  

We pray with our Lord to the Father for this gift of unity, and for joy and harmony in it.

 Wednesday in the Seventh Week of Easter, May 24, 2023

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.”

The idea of separation and unity first came into the world by God’s calling the Hebrews to be his holy people in the days of the Exodus, giving them the Law and making with them a covenant which made them distinct from their neighbors and unified in their worship of and belonging to God.  This distinction was marked not only by their behavior but even physically, through circumcision of the males.  This unity and separation was foreshadowed by the creation of the man and woman as members of one another and the separate creation of the human race from that of the animals and plants.  It is also foreshadowed in the choice of God to save Noah and his family in the Ark while the wicked perished in the flood.

The unity among themselves and separation from all other peoples of the Jews itself signifies that of the Apostles, and then of the Holy Church.  The Lord Jesus prays for the Father to bestow and protect this unity: “Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are one.”  To be one as the Divine Persons of the Trinity are one goes far beyond the unity that existed among the Jews: it is a binding on the level of existence that can be achieved solely through supernatural means.  There is also separation from all other peoples in that, “They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world.”  This separation from the world is accomplished through the defection of those who at one time belonged to this unity and through the rejection of those who do not desire it: “the world hated them.”

This separation does not, at this time, mean removal from the world.  Just as the Israelites dwelt among the pagan nations of their day, so those who belong to each other in Christ dwell among the unbelievers in the world, not conquering them by force as the Israelites did to the Canaanites but with love so that they might come to know the very Source of love, Almighty God, and have a place in our unity: “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 Greek word translated here as “consecrate” might be better translated as “sanctify”.  But since Jesus is God, it seems that he could not make himself more holy, more sanctified.  The Lord’s meaning is that he gives his holiness a new purpose, our holiness, our sanctification.  He has begun this work through his taking on our flesh, our human nature, and he will fully enact this work in us through his coming Passion, Death, and Resurrection, by which grace comes into the world, won for us by the sufferings of our Savior.  

 Tuesday in the Seventh Week of Easter, May 23, 2023

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 of the Seventh Week of Easter, May 22, 2023

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 21, 2023

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 20, 2023

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.”

“Amen, amen, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you.”. This promise by the Lord Jesus was included at the end of yesterday’s Gospel Reading although it begins a new subject and is connected to the words that follow it: “Until now you have not asked anything in my name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.”  The Lord says that we should ask God for whatever we need for the accomplishment of his holy will, and that we should do so in the name of Jesus.  We accomplish this in the Mass prayers, as when in today’s Mass the priest prays for us that God grant that we may strive always to hold tightly to the Paschal mystery — that is, to the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Christ.  The priest asks this of God the Father “through our Lord Jesus Christ your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, forever and ever.”  When we ask for something in someone’s name, it is as though that person himself were asking for it and would receive it.  Thus, when we ask for the grace to do God’s will and we do so in the name of Jesus, it is as though Jesus himself were asking this for himself of the Father — and of course the Father will grant such a request of the Son.  The Lord’s counsel to ask for what we need in his name draws us closer to his own divine Sonship in which we share as adopted children of God, as well as assures us of receiving a favorable answer.  “Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.”  Our joy is perfected or “completed” in performing the Father’s will, by which we are sanctified.

“I have told you this in figures of speech.”  The mistranslation here leads to a misunderstanding.  The text should read: “I have told you these things in figures of speech.”  That is, the Lord’s words about prayer are a parenthetical statement within the larger discourse.  We need to go back a bit in the discourse to recall what “these things” are: principally, that the Lord Jesus is departing for the Father but that the Apostles will see him again, and that he must depart in order to send the Advocate — the Holy Spirit — upon them, who will teach them all that they must know.  “The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures but I will tell you clearly about the Father.”  This “hour” will arrive after Jesus rises from the dead and reveals to the Apostles all that the Scriptures had said about him.  He has spoken to them to this point in figures and parables to prepare them for that hour, when they would possess the faith and grace necessary to know the truth in all its fullness.

“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.”  They will begin to pray to the Father in the name of the Son during the time between the Resurrection and the Ascension.  And Jesus assures them that the Father loves them so much that even if they did not ask in the name of Jesus or if Jesus did not intercede for them, he would grant it.  “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 tells the Apostles in what seems plain language to us that he is returning to heaven, but the Apostles would not have grasped from these words that the Lord was going to die on the Cross for the sins of the world.  Only later, with the Lord’s help, would they put his prophesies about his Death together with his speaking to them about returning to the Father.

The name of the Lord Jesus is powerful.  Let us speak his name with great love, as he speaks our names among the angels and with his Father, and let us pray for all that we need in it.

 Friday in the Sixth Week of Easter, May 19, 2023

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.”

“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 order to understand this Gospel Reading we must understand what has just preceded it.  The Lord has spoken of his leaving his disciples and then of their seeing him again.  The disciples then asked one another, “What is this that he says to us: A little while, and you shall not see me: and again a little while, and you shall see me, and, Because I go to the Father?”  To which the Lord responds, “Amen, amen, I say to you, you will weep and mourn, etc.”  The Lord’s departure and his return can be understood in two ways.  First, in his dying on the Cross, his Resurrection from the dead, and his subsequent appearances to his Apostles.  Second, in his Ascension into heaven and his Second Coming at which he will judge the living and the dead.  The Apostles certainly did grieve and mourn over his Death and rejoice in his Resurrection.  And since his Ascension into heaven we may be said to grieve and mourn in our longing for him to return.  This grief and mourning will be turned into joy for those who have loved him and persevered in the Faith.  If we look forward to something then we rejoice when it happens.  The world, however, rejoice over the Death of the Lord, thinking him to be finished off forever.  This can also be understood of the world when the saints of God are martyred or there is any apparent stumbling in the progress of the Church in her mission to convert the world.  Certainly the world rejoices now at the disappearance of morality in the western world.  This rejoicing is spoken of in the Book of Revelation when the Lord’s two great witnesses are slain: “They that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them and make merry: and shall send gifts one to another, because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt upon the earth.”  We might think of the two witnesses as faith and reason.

“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.”  The Lord compares the “anguish” of the Apostles to that of a woman about to give birth: “So you also are now in anguish.”  This image helps us to understand something of the tumult going on within the Apostles as they listened to the Lord speak to them, a tumult brought on by his definitively telling them that their dream of a new kingdom of Israel, which had seemed so close, was not to be, that he had not come to establish it, and that he was leaving them for some unknown destination.  Their world was shaken to its core and it seemed that after giving up everything they had loved and possessed, after the relentless, sleepless, hungry days they had endured for three years — was all for nothing.

“But I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you.”  The Apostles may not have heard or understood the words Jesus says now, as they reeled from learning that he planned to leave them.  We can also understand this as pertaining to the joy we shall have when the Lord comes again.  “On that day you will not question me about anything.”  On Easter Sunday evening, when the Apostles saw the Lord again, they did not ask him any questions but simply rejoiced.  At the great judgment at the end of the world, all of the questions we have now about why certain events happened in our lives or in history will be answered: no one will come away from the judgment without understanding.  

“Amen, amen, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you.”  The Lord has said this before during his discourse.  Indeed, he has commanded the Apostles to pray in his name.  Here, he reassures them that what they ask for in order to carry out God’s will would be granted to them.  This promise is a sign to them and to us of the Lord’s continual care for us as we prepare ourselves for when he comes again.

 Thursday in the Sixth Week of Easter, May 18, 2023

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.”

Traditionally, on the fortieth day after the Resurrection of the Lord we celebrate his Ascension into heaven.  This region’s bishops, however, have moved the celebration of this feast to the Sunday afterwards.  The present Gospel reading is from the Mass that is offered in place of that for Ascension Thursday.

When Jesus says, “A little while and you will no longer see me, and again a little while later and you will see me,” he is speaking to the Apostles and to every Christian since that time.  In St. John’s Gospel, Jesus is saying this at the end of his discourse at the Last Supper.  At that time, he is referring to his Death and Resurrection: he will be arrested and will die on the Cross and be buried, and they will not see him.  But then he rises from the dead, departs his tomb, and appears to them, so they will see him again.  Afterwards, he will ascend into heaven and they will not see him.  After their deaths, the Apostles will see him in heaven.  Indeed, the beatific vision  constitutes heaven.

Note that in all this, Jesus only says that they will not see him.  He does not say that he will cease to be present with them.  His “departure” is physical only.  His divinity never “leaves” them.  We remember that he said to them at the point of his Ascension into heaven, “And behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world” (Matthew 28, 20).  He disappears from sight, but he does not go away.

None of us have seen the Lord walk the earth, and yet we believe in him, taking comfort in the Lord’s words to Thomas: “Blessed are they that have not seen and have believed” (John 20, 29).  Yet we have felt his presence in our lives, sometimes for extended periods, and to different degrees.  He allows us this in order to console us, to strengthen us, and to help us imagine what it will be like to actually enjoy his embrace, which helps us to persevere.  In this way, we “see” him.  And we have all had the experience of emptiness in which we do not feel his presence.  That is, we do not “see” him.  He allows this too, in order to help us to grow in our faith, for if we only believe when it is easy, that is not much.  It is when we believe when there seems no reason to do so that we truly believe.  The same with love of him and hope in him.  Knowing this does not provide much help in the moment, however.  It is a grievous experience to be in love with someone and to not know when or if  we are going to see that person again. Yet this is the experience of the greatest saints.  Mother Teresa lived through this for years, and St. Therese of Lisieux writes very movingly about how this affected her, and how she suffered terrible temptations against the Faith during those times. By “disappearing”, the Lord calls forth greater faith from the ones he loves; and by remaining present, he helps them to increase in it.  St. Paul sums up this experience: “For whom the Lord loves, he chastises; and he scourges every son whom he receives” (Hebrews 12, 6).

The day will come, if we hold firm now, when we will say with the forsaken Job, “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and in the last day I shall rise out of the earth. And I shall be clothed again with my flesh, and in my flesh I shall see my God, whom I myself shall see, and my eyes shall behold, and not another: this my hope is laid up in my bosom” (Job 19, 25).

Wednesday in the Sixth Week of Easter, May 17, 2023

John 16, 12-15

 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.