Month: June 2019

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Pentecost

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Mass Readings for the Day

First Reading: Acts 2:1-11
Psalm: Psalm 104:1, 24, 29-30, 31, 34
Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 12:3B-7, 12-13
Gospel: John 20:19-23

Today we live in a world dominated by social media, and yet we are less social that ever! We are more divided, more entrenched in our points of view and much less tolerant of opinions with which we don’t agree. And yet, we don’t seem to be on a firm footing, do we? Many people seem unsettled as they race to keep pace with their hectic lives. And most troubling of all, I think, many people feel absolutely alone. “No one knows what I’m going through,” they say to themselves. “No one can understand.” Does this sound familiar?

My brothers and sisters, I have good news! Jesus tells us, “peace,” and he sent the Holy Spirit to walk with us. Pope Francis tells us that the Spirit brings order to our frenzy.

What a beautiful idea!

In contrast to the chaos of the crucifixion, Jesus doesn’t demand revenge. No! He tells us, “Peace!” Then he sends the Church on a mission. Go into the world offering forgiveness of sins. Those sins forgiven are forgiven. Those sins bound are bound. So, the Church today continues to mediate God’s message of mercy and hope in the world today. This great feast which marks the beginning of the Church, who mediates Christ’s mercy to the world.

But why should I confess my sins to a man? Set aside for a moment that our understanding of the Sacrament of Reconciliation is rooted in this scripture passage. There is something cathartic in admitting our sins openly – first to ourselves and then to God. It is not the man in the confessional – but God himself to whom we ask forgiveness.

If there is one thing we’ve learned over the last century, especially in light of so much human suffering, we cannot do it alone. Despite our desperate desire for the super-human we see depicted on the big screen, it is not the modern human or some alien hybrid who is the ultimate image of humanity. It is Jesus, risen from the dead and who now sits at the right hand of the Father, who is the example of what it means to be fully human. And it is the Holy Spirit that can guide us on our journey.

But our journey is not a solitary affair. As disciples who are on a mission to bring the Good News of Jesus Christ into the world, we share the message of hope and mercy of Jesus mediated through his church. It is our mission to reach out to others, beginning with those closest to us, our families and our friends, and then to those we encounter in everyday life and finally to those on the margins. Why keep this message of mercy to ourselves when so many of our friends and family are obsesses with social media? How many of people do we see who seem obsessed with posting selfies of themselves. How many of us cringe when we see our nieces and nephews or even our own children post pictures that give us pause or worse who we think are posting pictures so thinking they will be better received by their peers?

My brothers and sisters, we are the church! It is up to us to share the message of peace, the message of forgiveness, the message of hope and the message of love with others! The message of Pentecost is a reminder to us of the gifts given to us at our baptism and confirmation. We must pray for the grace to stir the flame of the Spirit within us so that we can go out into a world that desperately needs to hear a message of mercy, hope and peace.

Homework! I ask you to reflect on the following two questions this week.

  1. How do I live the action of the Holy Spirit in my life in a visible way?
  2. How do I let the Holy Spirit strengthen me and help me to devote myself to His works?

Do you got it? Do you get it? Good! May Almighty God bless you, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. +Amen!

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Ascension Sunday

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Mass Readings
First Reading: Acts 1:1-11
Psalm: Psalm 47:2-3, 6-9
Second Reading: Ephesians 1:17-23 OR Hebrew 9:24-28; 10:19-23
Gospel: Luke 24:46-53

Today we celebrate Ascension Sunday. What is the Ascension? I suggest to you that today is one of the most poorly celebrated of the great liturgical days in the liturgical calendar. We’ve turned today into a sort of “bon voyage” party, as if we’re seeing Jesus off on his return trip home. This is not a particularly helpful image.

To better understand the Ascension, we need to go back to the beginning, but first I want to say that I’m pulling a lot from the theologian, Michael Himes, and his excellent book, the Mystery of Faith.<1>

In Genesis, Chapter 1, God creates everything. But as he’s going along, it’s all fairly quick and straightforward. God says, “Let there be…”, and it just becomes and it is good (Genesis 1:3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24).

But on the sixth day, instead of just snapping humans into existences like a superhero, God pauses. God deliberates. God plans. God decides to use a blueprint to create humans – the blueprint being God’s own self. This is an important theme in the Hebrew tradition. Mosaic law will forbid making any idols or images of God (Exodus 20:4; Deuteronomy 5:8). Why? Because its redundant. God had already made an image of Himself, and we are it.

Remember what we’ve discussed before on Origin Sin. The temptation is that Adam and Eve should eat the forbidden fruit, they will become like God. That serpent tells the first humans that God is great and powerful and majestic and wise. But humans, life as a human is so messy. To become God, he tells them, they need to abandon being human and to eat the fruit of the tree.

The origin of sin, according to the Hebrew tradition, is the rejection of the goodness of being human. Evil, then, is the refusal to accept the goodness of creation. It is the refusal to accept the goodness and rightness of being human. The acceptance of the serpent says instead of what God says is what leads to all the evil in history.

But there is hope.

Our hope is in the “mystery that was kept secret for long ages but is now [as the prophets wrote] disclosed,” (Romans 16:25-26). The extraordinary claim of the hymn quoted in Philippians 2 is that God did not see being divine was something to be clung to, so He emptied Himself and took the form of slave, becoming like you and me in every way except sin.

This great mystery hidden for all generations and revealed in the Incarnation is God’s desire to be exactly like you and exactly me in every way except sin. This is the ultimate statement of being human. This is what human dignity is all about. Our understanding of human dignity flows from the teaching of the Incarnation and is at the heart of the Christian tradition.

If Original Sin is the rejection of the goodness of being human, then the Incarnation is the revelation of that goodness. When we read in the New Testament that Jesus has become like us in all things except sin (Hebrews 4:15), we are taught that our humanity unites us with the fullness of God’s glory.

Now, let’s consider the Ascension. The point of the Ascension is not the Jesus returns to the Father. The point of the Ascension, in the imagery of the Creed that we recite in the mass every weekend, is that what sits at the right hand of the Father is a human being just like you and just like me in every way except sin. What unites us with the fullness of the glory of the Father is our humanity. Being fully and authentically human means that you and I become more fully and truly like God, or to use another word, it means to become holy. Any form of spirituality that belittles humanity or de-emphasizes the goodness and dignity of the human person is a genuine obstacle to union with God.

Jesus gave us one commandment. To love God completely and to love our neighbor as ourselves is the same thing – it’s two sides of the same coin. The Vatican II document Lumen Gentium affirms this understanding that intimate union with God and the unity of all humanity are the same thing, (LG 1,1). That’s the point that we need to understand on Ascension Sunday.

Two quotes to ponder as we wrap up this reflection on the Ascension. The first is from John Paul II who wrote in his first encyclical, Redemptor Hominis, that Christianity is an attitude of “deep amazement at the human person’s worth and dignity.”<2> Saint Irenaeus, a second-century father of the church, wrote, “the glory of God is a human being fully alive.” And we’ll close with the image that what sits at the right hand of the Father is a human being just like you and just like me in every way except sin.

Homework!

  1. If the glory of God is a human fully alive, when are you fully alive?
  2. How does our true belief in the awesome dignity of humanity change the way we see the world?
  3. How can the dignity of the human person change the world?

Got it? Get it? Good! May Almighty God bless you, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. +Amen!

Notes:
<1> Himes, Michael, The Mystery of Faith: An Introduction to Catholicism (Cincinnati, OH: St. Anthony Messenger Press, 2004), 303-413.
<2> John Paul II, Redemptor Hominis (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1979), #10, 28.