Monday in Tenth Week of Ordinary Time, June 9, 2025

Matthew 5, 13-16

Jesus said to his disciples: “You are the salt of the earth. But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned? It is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket; it is set on a lampstand, where it gives light to all in the house. Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.”

The Gospel of St. Matthew can be read in light of the persecution the Galilean Christians were suffering at the time the Gospel was written, and of the Evangelist’s intention to strengthen their faith with recollections of the Lord Jesus.  The regular references made to the coming judgment at the end of the age tell us that this, too, was very much in the minds of the Evangelist and his original readers.  The Sermon on the Mount in chapters 5-7 of this Gospel contains numerous promises and assurances of the Lord both in regards to persecution and to the end times.  This is true of the well-known Beatitudes, and of the verses which form the Gospel reading for today’s Mass.

“You are the salt of the earth.”  Salt has always been used in small quantities and is sprinkled on food.  Too much of it can make any food inedible, but just the right amount can render it tasty.  It is not only most often found in the form of tiny particles, but these dissolve in water and tend to disappear in food.  The Lord calls his disciples “salt” because while they are not numerous and not prominent, yet their “flavor”, their “saltiness” changes the “taste” of everything it touches.  Salt is best used when it is used subtly.  It disappears, but is known to be present through its taste.  The disciples of Christ, through prayer and by the example of their virtues, influence non-believers.  This is especially true in giving example of virtues rarely seen today, such as modesty and honesty, which quietly challenge the status quo.  The disciples are the salt “of the earth”.  That is, to the people of the world.  They can “flavor” these people.  “But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned?”  The disciples must persevere in the world despite persecution.  They must continue in their faith, even growing in it during difficult times.  We maintain our “taste” in this way.  “But to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.”  The fate of the person who believed for a time but then gave up because of the cares of the world or tribulation, is to be “thrown out” at the time of death and then to be “trampled underfoot” by the demons.

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden.” It is Christ which causes the “saltiness” in the salt, the “light” in the sun, and is the mountain on which the “city” is set.  Without him, the salt is worthless, the sun is dark, and the city is lost.  He gives saltiness, light, and visibility to the works of his disciples so that he might make more disciples through them.  “Your light must shine before others.”  That is, we do not show off our light as though it announced our own importance.  In truth, if our light burns brightly enough, unbelievers will see not us but the light itself and will want it for themselves. “They may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.”  That is, they will see our heavenly Father in the deeds and glorify him.  

There is much for the Christian to do in this adverse age.  There are so many people to convert.  But we cast a wide net with our ordinary daily living in which Christ is enthroned in our hearts.

The Solemnity of Pentecost, June 8, 2025

John 20, 19–23

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you.” As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.” 

“On the evening”.  The Greek says, “late in the day”, which would mean the mid-afternoon, if John is speaking according to the Hebrew way of reckoning the days.  Otherwise, he could have meant “after dark”.  “The doors were locked”.  The Greek tells us that the doors were “shut”, as opposed to “locked”.  Now, the Lord had appeared very early in the morning to Mary Magdalene, who had gone to the tomb.  If that appearance occurred around dawn, then he appeared to his Apostles about twelve hours later.  While this may seem strange, we can look at it in a broader way: The Lord came to earth a little more than two thousand years ago, and he suffered, died, rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven, promising that he would come again at the end of the age to judge the living and the dead.  The Church has waited now all this time for his return, and she will continue to wait in patience until he does return.  The Apostles were in this position after Mary Magdalene announced that the Lord Jesus had risen.  They waited and prayed.  Certainly, they kept the doors shut “out of fear of the Jews” just as the Church has always existed under the threat or the reality of persecution and protects herself and her members with prayer.  When the Lord did come, it was without warning.  One moment he was not there, and the next he was.  It is just as he had told them before he was arrested: “For as lightning comes out of the east and appears even into the west: so shall also the coming of the Son of man be” (Matthew 24, 27).  The Lord found them waiting for him, just as we are to wait for his coming: “Watch ye therefore, because you know not at what hour your Lord will come” (Matthew 24, 42).  And to those who wait for him, he will say, “Peace be with you.”  The Son of God’s words, unlike ours, are effectual: they cause actions.  Thus, he put his Apostles at peace.  And so the just, at the end of time, will be at peace, seeing that their Lord has come.  The wicked, on the other hand, will react differently.  They will be as the guards of the Lord’s tomb when they saw the Angel: “And for fear of him, the guards were struck with terror and became as dead men” (Matthew 28, 4).

On the last day, the Lord will tell his faithful, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, possess you the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matthew 25, 34).  But it is not yet the end.  To help bring about the end, the Lord says to the Apostles, here: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”  The Gospel must be preached to the ends of the earth before the Lord comes again.  Jesus did not leave the Apostles powerless to accomplish this, but he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”  The Holy Spirit, proceeding from the Father and the Son came upon them and made them capable of carrying out the Lord’s command.  The Apostles do, in fact, receive the Holy Spirit at this time, but in a way that also points to the full reception of the Holy Spirit and his gifts on the Jewish feast of Pentecost.

While we await the second coming of the Lord, we who belong to him in the Church are united together and we work to spread the Gospel with great zeal, and pray that the great day of the Lord may come soon.

Saturday in the Seventh Week of Easter, June 7, 2025

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.

One of the strongest proofs that John the Apostle wrote the fourth Gospel is how hard the author tries to hide himself when relating what he remembers Jesus saying and doing.  Ironically, as earnestly as the author tries to hide, throughout his Gospel he insists that what he relates is the memories of an eyewitness.  One would expect that he would give his testimony more authority simply by identifying himself by name at some point.  But he cannot, because he will not do anything to draw the slightest bit of attention away from Jesus.  He is everything.  And that is the sign of a true lover of the Lord: it is always and only about Jesus.  This takes humility too.  And humility meaning an honest appraisal of oneself in relation to others, John shows a thorough understanding of Jesus as the Son of the Father, the Word who was with the God who spoke him from all eternity.  It is breathtaking to read John’s Gospel, seeing Jesus through his eyes all the while knowing that this is the God who came down from heaven and who did so out of pure love.

And John knew that Jesus loved him for he referred to himself as “one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved” (John 13, 23).  Not that John thought he was the only disciple Jesus loved but that John experienced the love of Jesus more fully than the others did.  And it was this experience of the Lord’s love that enabled John to love him as passionately as he did — the only Apostle to stand under the Lord’s Cross, and the first to reach the empty tomb when Mary Magdalene brought her news to them.  And he was able to experience the Lord’s love so fully because he gave himself to the Lord so completely, beginning on the day when John the Baptist pointed to Jesus and said, “Behold the Lamb of God” (John 1, 36).

“We love God because he first loved us” (1 John 4, 19).  Let us not hesitate to pray for the gift to know God’s love and to be able to love him as he loves us — with our whole being.

Friday in the Seventh Week of Easter, June 6, 2025

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.”

“Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?”  The Lord is speaking to St. Peter during one of his appearances after his Resurrection from the dead.  They have just eaten a breakfast of the fish the Apostles have miraculously caught at the Lord’s direction.  The Lord Jesus asks Peter, Do you, Peter, love me more than the other Apostles do?  This is a very different Peter from the one who, multiple times at the Last Supper, asserted that he would die rather than deny his Master.  Jesus tries him three times, and Peter, formerly so impulsive and effusive, remains in his humility.  He is hurt by the Lord’s trying him a third time, for it reminds him of the denials he had so steadfastly made a few nights before.  But the Lord is pleased by his responses, by his hard-won humility.  The English translation here has the Lord saying to him, “Feed my lambs . . . Feed my sheep.”  The Greek tense, though, has the sense of “keep feeding my lambs, keep feeding my sheep.”  The “lambs” can be understood as “the little ones” in the Faith, those just beginning in the way of Jesus and for whom special care must be taken; the “sheep” are the Apostles and disciples who have known the Lord for the three years of his public ministry and whose faith is firmer and whose understanding is on a higher level. 

“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.”  The Fathers understood this statement of the Lord to refer to Peter’s eventual martyrdom.  Peter accepts this quietly in his humility, knowing full well that the Lord means that he will be crucified.  Again, we note how much changed he is from the exuberant and outspoken fisherman of not long before, the one who protested so vigorously when the Lord spoke for the first time of his own coming Passion.  The phrase “where you do not want to go” can be understood to mean that Peter would feel he had so much more work to do that he wanted to continue living awhile on the earth.  It could also refer to his expressed reluctance to die in the same manner as that by which his Lord was killed.  Apocryphal works also tell us that Peter’s followers in Rome tried to smuggle him out of Rome before he could be arrested, and that though at first he wanted to stay, he was persuaded to go, but then turned back upon seeing the Lord in a vision.

“Follow me.”  Again, the sense of the Greek word is, “Keep on following me.”  The understanding of the sense of the Greek imperative mood is important because it helps us see that the Lord did not see Peter’s denials as a cause for a permanent break in his following.  Peter had acted out of weakness in his denials, not out of the malice that motivated Judas.  We may take comfort from this for ourselves, that we may truly learn the humility necessary to love and obey the Lord Jesus, and that the sins we commit out of weakness do not permanently prevent us from continuing as his followers.

Thursday in the Seventh Week of Easter, June 5, 2025

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.”

“I pray not only for these, but also for those who will believe in me through their word.”  Earlier in his prayer for unity, the Lord Jesus said, “I gave them your word . . . Your word is truth.”  He is referring to the Apostles here.  The Lord gave them the Father’s word that is truth so that the Apostles might believe.  The “word” of the Father is the Son himself: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  This is the mystery of the Son who was sent and at the same time came of his own will.  This mystery resembles that of the Son who was raised by the Father from the dead, and rose by his own power.  It is the mystery of the Holy Trinity in which three distinct Persons exist in the purest unity with each other.  Jesus is revealing to us that the Holy Trinity is involved in our salvation.  The Holy Trinity is not some abstract mathematical theory out in space somewhere, but is very close to us.  The Son comes down from heaven to teach us of God’s — the Holy Trinity’s — infinite love for us, and shows it to us in the horrific slaughter on the Cross; the Son shows that there is nothing he or the Father or the Holy Spirit would not do for us.  And in showing us the depths of their love, the Son effects our redemption, canceling out our impossible debt of sin against the majesty of the Almighty God.  The Son does not cancel our debt — obliterate it, really, and then disappear, leaving us on our own to ponder what to do now, but he eternally prays for “those who will believe in me through their word”, through the word of the Apostles.  While the Word came and was heard directly by the Apostles, the Apostles would “speak” the Word themselves to others in their own way, speaking about him: telling of his life, his commandments, and then practicing these commandments so as to be visible models of him.  These others could then become believers and, once baptized, in union with all who believe.

“I made known to them your name and I will make it known.”  That we may speak about the Word of God and imitate his life is a great privilege won for us by the Son.  And we do not do this on our own, left to our own devices, as it were, but the Son does this through us: I will make your name known, Father, through those who have already received it.  

Wednesday in the Seventh Week of Easter, June 4, 2025

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 the Lord’s sermon at the Last Supper, he offers a prayer to his Father which is sometimes called the Prayer of Unity.  In it, the Lord prays for his disciples.  We seldom hear the words of the Lord’s prayers to his Father when he interceded for his disciples, and so here we learn of his greatest concerns for them.  He does not pray for their health or material prosperity or even for their success in preaching the Gospel after he has left them.  He prays for their unity.  We must distinguish this unity from other things that might resemble it.  “Unity” involves the spirit and is accomplished by the willed reception of grace.  Unity allows for the communication of merit from the Lord and the saints to us, and of our merit to others, for the strengthening of faith and virtue.  “Unity” transcends “community” and “associations”.  As St. Paul says, “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one Body” (1 Corinthians 12, 12-13).  As a result, “If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together” (1 Corinthians 12, 26).  It is in that we are members of the Body of Christ that we are saved.  The Lord confers unity with him and with his members on those who desire it through baptism, and strengthens the bond of this unity through offering us — and our devout receiving — the Sacraments of his Church.  We also do our part in strengthening our bond with him and with our fellow members by growing in our faith, hope and love and by performing good works.  Our Lord prays for his followers at the Last Supper for the graces we need in order to do this.

“When I was with them I protected them in your name that you gave me.”  The name the Father gave him, from all eternity, is “Son”.  The Son protected his Apostles from evil by virtue of his Sonship, and of their becoming “sons in the Son” through their faith — all excepting “the son of destruction” who chose to destroy himself by hating the Son of God.  “In order that the Scripture might be fulfilled.”  The sense is, “Fulfilling the Scripture.”  The Scriptures did not cause Judas to sin, nor did anything else.  His choice to betray Christ was foreseen by the Prophets through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

“I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the Evil One.”  The Apostles — and we — are to work during our lifetimes to spread the Gospel.  The Lord Jesus does not ask the Father to take those who belong to him “out of the world”, that is, to preserve them the attendant hardships and persecution.  These will act as the means to grow stronger in the Faith, for those committed to the Lord.  At the same time, he asks that his members be kept from the devil — from temptations that cannot be overcome, from despair, and from the direct assaults of Satan and his horde.  Rather, those who are members of the Lord’s Body will defeat the Evil One by resisting temptation in their own lives, and aiding others in resisting it. 

“They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. Consecrate them in the truth.”  Through baptism, “consecration in the truth”, we do not belong to the world any longer.  We die to the world and all its false delights and wickedness in the waters of baptism and live in Christ.  We are also consecrated “in truth” through Holy Orders and Matrimony, sacraments which provide us the graces we need in order to live our specific vocations.

“And I consecrate myself for them, so that they also may be consecrated in truth.”  The Lord Jesus consecrated himself for them through his Blood on the Cross, offering his total obedience to the Father for the salvation of the human race.  In this way, he offers his followers a model and also the means — the grace — to follow in his footsteps: “For unto this are you called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving you an example that you should follow his steps” (1 Peter 2, 21). 

To “consecrate” means “to make sacred” and “to set apart”.  Let us keep in mind that we have been consecrated by the Lord for glory.

Tuesday in the Seventh Week of Easter, June 3, 202

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.”

“Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.”  The Gospel readings for Mass continue to be taken from the Lord’s sermon at the Last Supper in St. John’s Gospel.  “That they should know you, the only true God.”  The Lord Jesus does not say, “that they should know about you”, but “they should know you”.  Eternal life, then, is knowing God.  This brings to mind 1 John 3, 2: “We know that when he shall appear we shall be like to him: because we shall see him as he is.”  Intimacy with the Lord results in our becoming “like to him”.  The Lord Jesus desires his followers to know his Father in prayer, to really know him.  Deep in prayer and in meditation upon the mysteries of our salvation, we may draw very near to God and know him in a way far greater than if we could see him with our eyes.  To know him — to see him — is eternal life because it is to look upon infinite love.  This we shall do perfectly in heaven if we are pure of heart, for only the pure of heart shall see God (cf. Matthew 5, 8).

“Now glorify me, Father, with you, with the glory that I had with you before the world began.”  This is one of the most moving and majestic sentences ever uttered.  We ought to gaze in wonder at it and think about the glory that the Son had with the Father from all eternity, “before the world began”.

“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.”  We see here what we must do to “know” God: we must accept the words the Son gives to us — agreeing to obey them because they come from the Father through the Son.  We must “truly understand” that the Son comes from the Father — that he became incarnate and lived among us.  And we must believe that the Father sent the Son — that the Son, knowing the Father’s will, freely came down from heaven to us in order to atone for our sins and to open the gates of heaven for us.

“I do not pray for the world but for the ones you have given me.”  That is, those who belong to the world reject the graces which the Lord offers them.  We think of Annas and Caiphas, the high priests who looked into the eyes of Jesus Christ and heard him acknowledge his divinity — proven time and again by his miracles — and rejected him anyway.  Their pride and their ambition was their god.  We think of Judas and the thirty pieces of silver that were his gods.  Also, of Pontius Pilate, who looked at the Truth with his own eyes and asked, “What is truth?”  But he was not looking for an answer, only speaking in despair.  He crucified an innocent man rather than uphold justice.  His god was himself.

“I have been glorified in them.”  God glorifies his Son in those who belong to his Son and have zeal for the Gospel.  This is the glory for which the Son prays, and his prayer is all for our benefit.  He offers is the chance to glorify him, the infinite God, with all the angels and saints in heaven.

Monday in the Seventh Week of Easter, June 2, 2025

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 Jesus’s sermon during the Last Supper.

 “Now you are talking plainly, and not in any figure of speech.”  Sometimes when we do not understand what another person is telling us, we assume it is because the other person is not speaking clearly.  We should also wonder, though, if it is not a matter of our own expectations and biases getting in the way of our comprehension.  The Lord Jesus had always spoken clearly.  Even in his parables he spoke clearly and made the dilemmas posed in them clear.  The crowds and disciples did not always accept the implications of a given parable, but they understood on one level or another what he was saying to them.  If there was a problem with how the Lord talked, in the eyes of the disciples, it was that he spoke too clearly.  We remember how the Lord condemned the Pharisees on one particular occasion, and a lawyer urged him to speak more moderately: “And one of the lawyers answering, said to him: ‘Master, in saying these things, you reproach us also.’ But he said: ‘Woe to you lawyers also.’ ”  Knowing ourselves all too well, we are also aware that when someone tells us what we do not want to hear, we go into denial, or try to reword what was said, or try to forget it.  We should never underestimate our willingness to excuse ourselves, either for what we have done or for what we are about to do.

“The hour is coming and has arrived when each of you will be scattered to his own home and you will leave me alone.”  We “scatter” to our own “homes” because of fear or guilt.  By “homes” we ought to understand mental states in which we feel safe.  Essentially, it means pretending.  Times arise in which we ought to “depart”, as when we find ourselves in an occasion of sin, but those who “scatter” do so in panic rather than in measured consideration, and arrive at their destination disheveled and in disarray.  They give up every good they possess in order to arrive at a very temporary feeling of safety.  We do this when we fail to defend the Faith or to confess that we are Christians, and when we back down from challenges to what the Lord taught.  The Lord is “alone” then, but not himself vulnerable or in actual danger, but in that his followers had failed him and themselves.  “I have told you this so that you might have peace in me.”  It is only in relying on the Lord, clinging to his friendship and his teachings, that we can have peace.  Through our sanctification we become more and more at peace, and eager to live our Faith and speak of our Lord.

“In the world you will have trouble, but take courage.”  That is, the world will seek to trouble those who believe in Jesus, but they need not be troubled by the words of others or their invitations to join in their sin, as well as by internal temptations such as to covet, to lie, to lust, or to lose our patience.  These do but knock on the doors of our soul.  But there is no rule that we have to open a door just because someone or something knocks on it.  “I have conquered the world.”  These words thrill us to hear them: our Lord has conquered the world.  By this he means that he has overcome all temptations and all the enticements our mortal life could offer.  Even that which was perfectly lawful for him as a Jew, such as marriage, he had scorned because it was not part of his Father’s plan for him.  We too can conquer the world, not by amassing power and arms, but by rejecting all that is in any way contrary to God’s plan for us, even things we can otherwise legitimately have.  We must pray for grace that we might do this, and grow in the virtues, for when we have conquered the world we are awarded a triumphal entrance into heaven.

The Solemnity of the Ascension, Sunday, June. 1, 2025

Acts 1, 1–11

In the first book, Theophilus, I dealt with all that Jesus did and taught until the day he was taken up, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. He presented himself alive to them by many proofs after he had suffered, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. While meeting with them, he enjoined them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for “the promise of the Father about which you have heard me speak; for John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”  When they had gathered together they asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” He answered them, “It is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has established by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” When he had said this, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight. While they were looking intently at the sky as he was going, suddenly two men dressed in white garments stood beside them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven.”

It is interesting that it is St. Luke, the Greek Evangelist writing for a Greek readership, who describes how some of the disciples asked the Lord Jesus even after his Resurrection and his extended explanations to his followers about what his Death and Rising accomplished for them, whether he was then going to reestablish the kingdom of Israel.  Luke does this in order to make an early distinction between the Jewish Christians and the later Gentile Christians.  That is, if the Jewish believers could be wrong about the Lord raising up a new kingdom of Israel even when it was plain that he would not, then they could be wrong about other things, such as their insistence that Gentiles needed circumcision in order to become Christians.  The only other Evangelist who might have included this was St. Mark, but his readership in Rome did not face the same pressures.  

The great question about the Ascension is why did Jesus leave us?  Of course, he did not abandon us.  He is present among us most especially in the Most Blessed Sacrament.  Yet he is not visibly present.  The Lord ascended into heaven not to go away from us, but to draw us closer to him.  If he remains here, then we would not see him there.  Throughout the Gospels, the Lord draws on the Apostles.  He leads them.  He does not wander, but he leads them very purposefully.  He does the same with us now.  And the way to him, the way through which he leads us, is his own life, for he is “the way, the truth, and the life”.  We imitate his life and follow in his footsteps in lives of prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and preaching.

We celebrate this day as a day of the Lord’s glory revealed on earth, and as a day on which he bids us follow him.

The Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Friday, May 31, 2025

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.”  And Mary said: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant. From this day all generations will call me blessed: the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his Name. He has mercy on those who fear him in every generation. He has shown the strength of his arm, he has scattered the proud in their conceit. He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty. He has come to the help of his servant Israel for he has remembered his promise of mercy, the promise he made to our fathers, to Abraham and his children for ever.”  Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home.

In ancient times, a handmaid sat at the feet of her master or mistress, poised to act at the slightest gesture that indicated an action to take.  Here, the Virgin Mary, who called herself “the handmaid of the Lord”, does not wait for a command from the Angel Gabriel to go to her relative Elizabeth, but goes “in haste” at his informing her that she is three months pregnant.  And she does this at the time the Angel has announced to her that she will be the Mother of God.  Mary takes no time for herself but goes to serve.  It may be too that Mary, hearing the name of her relative from the Angel’s mouth considered that he was directing her to Elizabeth’s husband, the priest Zechariah, who could help her understand what she was to do to prepare for the Birth of her own Son.  She goes to serve and to learn how to serve.  Truly, she came to serve and not to be served (cf. Matthew 20, 28).

“Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste.”  The Greek word translated here as “haste” can also mean “with diligence” and it is a better choice for the translator.  “Haste” implies an emotional state near akin to panic, rushing out without preparation, hurrying without prudence.  “With diligence”, in contrast, implies care, but acting without delay, moving efficiently.  And this is how a good servant acts.  And Mary’s speech and behavior during her meeting with Gabriel showed great reserve and prudence.

“She entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.”  Presumably Zechariah was in the house or near it at the time Mary arrived and he would have greeted her at that time.  It would have been a strange greeting, for he could not speak and Mary would have have amazed by his muteness. At the same time, her coming to visit then could have meant only one thing — that she knew of Elizabeth’s pregnancy.  She knew of this even though no one else even suspected it, for Elizabeth had hidden herself away in the house for months without a word to any friends or members of her family.  But knowing the reason for her visit, he brought Mary to the room where Elizabeth had been staying, and she came out, hearing her voice.

“When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb.”  Such a scene!  Zechariah’s amazement at Mary’s arrival, Mary’s astonishment at finding Zechariah mute, Mary’s joy at seeing her pregnant relative, and now Elizabeth’s wonder as she recognized that Mary was the Mother of her Lord through the bounding in her womb of her own unborn son.  “Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice.”  She cried out doubly for her and her husband, and also for all the world.  Zechariah 9, 9: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Sion, shout for joy, O daughter of Jerusalem: Behold, thy King will come to thee, the just and saviour.”

“And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” Elizabeth, who was due respect as an older woman and as the wife of a priest, humbles herself before Mary, recognizing, through the Holy Spirit, that the King of kings had made Mary’s womb his throne room.