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.

Friday in the Sixth Week of Easter, May 30, 2025

John 16, 20–23

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

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

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

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

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

Thursday in the Sixth Week of Easter, May 29, 2025

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.”

“A little while and you will no longer see me, and again a little while later and you will see me.”  The Lord Jesus is speaking at the Last Supper and preparing his Apostles for his Death and Resurrection as well as for the time after he ascends into heaven.  He has just taught them of the Holy Spirit, who will come to them at that time.  He now returns to the subject of his departure from this world in the crucifixion.  This will take place “in a little while”.  He says, “You will no longer see me”, meaning, “as you see me now”, for after his rising from the dead he will appear to them in his glorified Body in which the wounds of his Death will be evident.  The Lord also speaks in this way to assure the Apostles that although he will go from them in death, he will not vanish forever or stop existing. And, “in a little while” they will see him again, glorified.  This also applies to the great day of judgment at the end of the world.  The Lord will return to the earth: “Behold, he comes with the clouds, and every eye shall see him: and they also that pierced him” (Revelation 1, 7).  “A little while later and you will see me.”  This can also refer to our resurrection, for on the day of judgment our souls will rejoin our bodies again and in our own glorified bodies we will see the Lord Jesus.  And, finally, these words apply to each of the saved, for the one who dies in the state of grace after a holy life will see the Lord whom each has served.

What can be said about the risen body?  We can learn about it by studying the Lord’s appearances after his Resurrection and from the teaching of the Apostles.  We know, first, that his glorified Body is no longer subject to death.  It is immortal: “Christ, rising again from the dead, dies now no more. Death shall no more have dominion over him” (Romans 6, 9).  We also know that his Body is subject neither age or suffering of any kind, for in heaven the saints, body and soul united again, are “are as the angels in heaven” (Mark 12, 25).  Next, the glorified Body of Jesus Christ possesses great beauty.  As St. Paul teaches about the risen body in general, “It is sown in dishonor: it shall rise in glory. It is sown in weakness: it shall rise in power.   It is sown a natural body: it shall rise a spiritual body” (1 Corinthians 15, 43-44).  St. Matthew describes the hint of his glorious Body in his account of the Transfiguration: “His face did shine as the sun: and his garments became white as snow” (Matthew 17, 2).  The Lord appeared to the Apostles in more prosaic forms — or, he caused them to see him in these forms — but this is something like he appears in heaven to the saints and angels.

The Lord’s Body also possesses the quality which philosophers call “agility”.  That is, the Lord, united to his glorified human Body, can change his location in an instant.  Should he wish to appear on a planet at one end of the universe, he could do so in the same moment as he desired it even were he on a planet at the other end of the universe.  Thus, in Luke 24, 31, he vanished from the presence of the two disciples on their way to Emmaus, and appeared again in some other place.  Another quality of the glorified body is the complete dominion of the soul over the body.  St. Paul lamented, “For, to will is present with me: but to accomplish that which is good, I find not. For the good which I will, I do not: but the evil which I will not, that I do” (Romans 7, 18-19).  He understood why this was: “I find then a law, that when I have a will to do good, evil is present with me” (Romans 7, 21).  That is, our fallen human nature tends to sin.  But this will no longer be so in heaven: “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes . . . the former things are passed away” (Revelation 21, 4).  The meaning of which is that the glorified body will be entirely free of the effects of original sin.  Not only will there be no more temptation, the the saint in heaven will be completely free from anything that would hinder him from doing the will of God, in which he delights.

Lastly, among the qualities which are known, will be the capability of beholding the Beatific Vision.  The senses of the human body in its natural state are very limited in what they can detect about the world and can in no way “see” God face to face.  But the glorified body can do this.  Almighty God equips the risen body of the saint with what we might call “glorified senses” so as to see him as he is.

All these qualities the Body of the Lord possesses in heaven, and these shall come to us too if we persevere in holiness.

Wednesday in the Sixth Week of Easter, May 28, 2025

John 16, 12-15

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

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

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

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

Tuesday in the Sixth Week of Easter, May 27, 2025

John 16, 5-11

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

The Lord, teaching at the Last Supper, had spoken more than once of his departure, even telling the Apostles that though he was going away, he would not leave them as “orphans”.  Previously, they had heard him speak of his departure while preaching to the crowd.  The response of those in the crowd was one of confusion: “Jesus said to them: ‘I go: and you shall seek me. And you shall die in your sin. Where I go, you cannot come.’  The Jews therefore said: ‘Will he kill himself?’ ” (John 8, 21-22).  But the Apostles seem not to have followed up to ask about his leaving.  Where was he going? Would they be following him there?  Much of his teaching they did not understand; perhaps they thought that he would explain this in his good time.  Here, at the Last Supper, his exclamation, “Not one of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ ”, sounds like a rebuke.  St. Thomas comes nearest to asking where he is going, yet he gets only as far as, “Lord, we know not where you are going. And how can we know the way?” (John 14, 5).  The Lord reads their hearts and tells them, “Because I told you this, grief has filled your hearts.”  It was grief, then, that prevented them from asking where he was going.  They knew the answer to the question all along, but did not dare have it confirmed.  This “grief” of which Jesus speaks tells us much of the love borne him by his Apostles.  They followed him not as a soldier follows his superior, or as an apprentice follows his master, but simply out of their love for him and his teachings.  This love came even though the Lord frequently upbraided them for their lack of knowledge, for their lack of faith, for their hardness of heart.  It came despite the hardness of his teachings and of the demands made upon them personally.  We see the intensity of this love again when Peter, in his weakness, denies the Lord.  St. Luke says, on that occasion, “And the Lord, turning, looked on Peter . . . and Peter, going out, wept bitterly.”  The Lord’s “look” was not of anger, but of love for his friend.  Peter’s bitter tears were shed because he had hurt the love of his life, and the One he loved, loved him still.

Jesus hastens to assure them, who were bearing a sorrow so deep they could not speak, that, “It is better for you that I should go.”  The Lord connects his departure with the arrival of the Holy Spirit, the Advocate.  It was better for them that Jesus went, because by his Death he set them free from sin and opened for them the Kingdom of heaven.  This could not occur without his sacrificial Death.  His going away also provided great motivation for living according to his word so that they might be with him forever in heaven.  And with his Death, Resurrection, and Ascension into heaven, the era of the New Covenant begins: the Holy Spirit fills them and transforms them so that they might spread the Lord’s Gospel and accomplish his work on earth.

“When he comes he will convict the world in regard to sin and righteousness and condemnation.”  The Greek word ἐλέγχω (elégkho), translated here as “convict” also means “to expose” and “to reprove”.  It has also been translated, in this context, as “to convince”.  I think that here the word is better translated as “to expose”: he will expose the world in regard to sin and righteousness and condemnation.  It is not the work of the Holy Spirit to render judgment, to “convict” — that is for the Son at his Second Coming.  But it is the work of the Holy Spirit to enlighten the understanding and to inspire.  In that sense, when the Holy Spirit comes he will expose the world in all its depravity to all the followers of Jesus: they will know the truth of the false and fleeting pleasures the world offers so that they may reject them.  He will also expose righteousness, in that they will understand the purpose of the Son of God in coming among us, and for his Death and Rising.  And he will expose the defeat and punishment of the enemy of mankind, the devil.  Only with the Holy Spirit can these things be known, and only when the Lord dies and rises and leaves this world until the time when he comes again as its judge, can the Holy Spirit come.  Knowing these things will also enable them, indeed, spur them on, to preach to all the nations.  

The Father and the Son have bestowed the Holy Spirit upon us in Baptism and Confirmation to strengthen us in trial, to enlighten us as to the divine will, and the strength to bring the Gospel before all nations.  We have been given everything we need to imitate the love of the Apostles.

Monday in the Sixth Week of Easter, May 26, 2025

John 15, 26–16, 4

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

The Gospel readings, this late in the season of Easter, prepare us for the celebration of Pentecost, giving us the Lord’s teaching on the Holy Spirit, which we find principally in St. John’s Gospel.  The Lord has already spoken of the Holy Spirit as the Unity of the Father and the Son.  Here, he speaks of him as “the Spirit of truth”.  He is the Spirit of truth because he proceeds from the Father and testifies to the Son.  He testifies to the Son through the holiness of the Church and the saints, through the holy teachings of the Church, which are the teachings of Christ, through the Holy Scriptures which are given to the Church to announce and interpret, and through the Sacraments, by which the Church’s members are sanctified.  The Lord tells his Apostles, “You also testify”, as eyewitnesses to his words and mighty works.  They do this through their Gospels, letters, and preaching, and through their holy lives, leading ultimately to their martyrdom.

It is of persecution and martyrdom that he next speaks.  He says, “I have told you this so that you may not fall away.”  The main verb here is in the perfect tense and refers back to a prior time: I have told you this (previously), “They will expel you from the synagogues, etc.”  Indeed, from the beginning of his ministry, as witnessed by St. Matthew, Jesus has spoken of the persecution and murder of believers.  Testimony to Jesus will inevitably lead to this since the world will feel threatened by it.  The fact that John quotes Jesus specifically saying that the faithful will be expelled from the synagogues is a clue that he wrote his Gospel for Jewish Christians at a time when this was taking place, most likely before 70 A.D.  So horrible will this persecution be that “everyone who kills you will think he is offering worship to God.”  This was a particular trial for the early Jewish Christians in Galilee and Judea, that their own co-religionists, their own neighbors, were persecuting them. 

The Lord does not tell us this in order to frighten them, but to encourage us: “I have told you this so that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you.”  That is, the fulfillment of the Lord’s prophecy will cement the conviction of the faithful in his divinity.  To this point the Lord attracted large crowds and even some among the Jewish leaders believed in him.  Just a few days before, he had entered Jerusalem to great acclaim.  No sign pointed to the cataclysm of which Jesus spoke.  Perhaps the Apostles were startled and confused by these words and they put them aside at the time.  Later, in the weeks after Pentecost when they preached Jesus openly, the Jewish leadership would arrest them and beat them, but they would rejoice because they had suffered for Jesus, and because they saw his prophecy fulfilled in them.

The Sixth Sunday in Easter, May 25, 2025

 John 14, 23–29

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

“Whoever loves me will keep my word.”  The Lord Jesus defines love for us as a submission to another that expresses itself in service.  Jesus shows it to the .Apostles during the Last Supper by washing their feet, and to the world by dying on the Cross.  When two persons love one another, as in marriage, there is a mutual submission, as St. Paul teaches: “Let women be subject to their husbands, as to the Lord . . .  Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the church and delivered himself up for it” (Ephesians 5, 22 and 25).  Now, the primary relationship each human person has is with God.  Human marriage signifies it, for there is the highest possible level of mutual submission in it.  The Son of God took the form of a slave and became “obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross” (Philippians 2, 8) for our sake.  And, for our part, we make ourselves totally obedient to him, and this is why he tells us, “Whoever loves me will keep my word.”  We are to follow him unreservedly in his commandments, whatever it might cost us in this world.  Even so, we cannot hope to match what he has done for us: he purchased our freedom from sin with his Blood and makes us capable of union with him in heaven.  Nor are his commandments arbitrary.  They keep us safe from sin and the wiles of the devil so that we might be saved.

The Lord does not leave us to our own devices in following his commandments for he knows we could not carry them out if he did.  In order to assist us, he and his Father sends us the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, who provides us the inspirations, nudges, and graces we need in order to obey the divine will.  By heeding the guidance the Holy Spirit provides, we may experience the peace the Lord Jesus offers us — one that no one can take away.

Saturday in the Fifth Week of Easter, May 24, 2025

John 15, 18-21

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

The Lord Jesus uses the word “world” (which translates the Greek word from which we get “cosmos”) to mean not only the opposite of spirit but as spirit’s antagonist.  It stands for everything that pulls at the soul to keep it from God, to derail it on its path towards God.  It is our baser instincts and bad habits.  It is our tendency to sin.  It is all the material pleasures and goods that distract us from virtue and faith.  We react to things of this kind in such a way that they seem to actively draw us in.  And then there are all the people around us who live for these pleasures and goods and try to ensnare us with them as well, appealing to our pride, our greed, our lust.  And behind all of this the devil and his armies, studying us and ready to act at all times.

“If the world hates you.”  Jesus speaks of the faithful believer striving to live virtuously who infuriates the wicked people around us who feel the believer must validate their choices by succumbing to them himself.  This can also mean how a person endeavoring to lead a good life struggles against his fallen human nature and denies himself things which may not be bad in themselves but which do not assist him on his journey to God.  This can also feel, at times, like a bitter fight,  “It hated me first.”  That is, Jesus was tempted more severely than any of his followers have been and yet he did not sin. But always sent the devil away empty handed.

“If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own.”  It would be so easy to give up, or even to compromise just once on something very small.  We begin to think we deserve some little reward for our hard work at self-denial.  But giving in like this often leads to a person’s virtuous life completely unraveling.  And then we take a deep breath and look around at all the pleasures and comforts available to us and think that it is not so bad after all.  And for a short while we feel free.  This is the world “loving” us.  But it is an illusion.  It is only fattening us up for slaughter.

“Because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you.”  The one devoted to Christ, however, knows himself to be chosen by him and to be filled with the graces he needs in order to ward off the advances of the devil, who will use whatever weapons he can against him.  The devil cannot abide any good work, any tiny act of faith.  If only one saint remained on the earth and hell was filled with every human ever created, the devil would rage as though he had enticed no one at all to follow him and he would fight with all his might to secure this saint for himself.  His hatred is unremitting and he works through the world to get at the believer so that the believer, at times, may feel the whole world is against him. Psalm 25, 16: “Look thou upon me, and have mercy on me; for I am alone and poor.”

“If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.”  The Lord Jesus does not hide the truth from his followers, whom he loves.  He teaches them to expect trouble because they belong to him.  He does not want them taken by surprise or despair because they thought they were safe from temptation or tribulation in this life.  But though these torrents pour into their lives, as long as the Lord is in the boat with them and they do not jump overboard in a vain effort to save themselves, they will be saved.  Psalm 107, 28-29: “And they cried to the Lord in their affliction: and he brought them out of their distresses.  And he turned the storm into a breeze: and its waves were still.”

Friday in the Fifth Week of Easter, May 23, 2025

John 15, 12-17

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

“This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.”  This might have seemed like an odd commandment the moment Jesus gave it.  These men to whom he was speaking had followed him more or less harmoniously for three years.  There had been disputes here and there, but they had subsided.  These men understood that they were bound together in the fellowship of Christ.  However, the Lord immediately defines what “love” means and what he expects of his disciples: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”  Love, then, means the willingness to die for the other.  Love means sacrifice, or, at the very least, the willingness to sacrifice for another.  The image of love is the crucifix.  Christ desires unity among his Apostles after he leaves them, but he wants more than a general agreement on principles.  He wants them to love each other with the love with which he loved them.  This makes them Christians, men worthy of his name.

The Lord characterizes these men as his “friends”, so long as they do as he commands them.  This ought to sound like an odd qualification for a “friend”, for what person commands his friends?  But Jesus does not call them his equals.  Indeed, he says that he formerly called them “slaves”.  He has raised them up by his confiding in them as friends “everything I have heard from the Father.”  But it is he who has done the raising.  He is the undisputed leader, but he chooses to love his followers as his friends.  He emphasizes his primacy by reminding them that, “It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you.”  At this reminder, each of the Apostles must have thought back to the dramatic moment in which he had heard the Lord call him: Peter and Andrew, and James and John, on their boats early in the morning; Matthew at his desk, collecting taxes; Bartholomew, who was sitting under a fig tree, meditating.

An important reason for Jesus reminding them that he had chosen them, not them him, is that this is the reverse for how movements develop.  That is, a person speaks or performs some action or lays out his beliefs in a manifesto, and people are attracted to him or to his beliefs and they begin to follow and even support him.  John the Baptist and the prophets of old acquired followers in this way.  But it is individuals  who make the choice to follow them.  Jesus, by contrast, calls people to himself.  He calls them as one who already knows them and what will be for their good.  Jesus actively desires these particular people.  They are not numbers to him.  And as he has called them and they have responded, he himself is the source of their unity.  This reality makes Christianity very distinct from any other religion or philosophical movement.  And it was not true only for the first followers of Christ; it continues to be true today.  Everyone who is a Christian is so because he or she has been called personally by Christ to be a member of his Body, and the person submits to baptism.  This is true whether the person is an infant or elderly.  Otherwise, a person could apply to be baptized and have his or her own ideas about what belonging to Jesus would mean.  Since Jesus calls first, we accept his invitation on his terms, or not at all.