Monday, May 13, 2013

Monday of the Seventh Week of Easter

(Acts 19:1-8; John 16:29-33)

The Greek father St. Gregory of Nazianzus wrote that the Old Testament reveals God the Father clearly but only dimly God the Son.  He further said that the New Testament features God the Son but the Spirit has only a minor role.  He concluded that in the Age of the Church -- which is now -- the Spirit is made manifest.  Today’s reading from Acts underscores the lack of knowledge of the Holy Spirit in Jesus’ time.

How the people learned of Jesus without awareness of the Holy Spirit is somewhat of a mystery.  Could they have been taught by a disciple of Jesus who had to leave him before the latter’s going up to Jerusalem?  From the inconsistent list of apostles, exegetes speculate that people were continually joining and leaving Jesus’ company.  In the reading the disciples show remarkable willingness to receive the Spirit in Baptism which is more than the sign of a washing, but of a whole new life. 

Unfortunately many in our midst have no real appreciation of the Holy Spirit.  They simply do not realize that it is the Spirit who alters our humanity.  The Spirit like genetic engineering makes us into a new kind of creature capable of loving indiscriminately.  As we pray to the Father and to the Son, we should ask the Holy Spirit daily to make his transformative presence felt within us.

Friday, May 10, 2013

Friday of the Sixth Week in Lent

(Acts 18:9-18; John 16:20-23)

Someone you love is diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor.  She will be dead most probably within a year, perhaps a little more, but there is no long-term prognosis.  You begin the excruciating ordeal of saying, “Good-bye.”  This is the situation of the disciples which the Lord himself addresses in today’s gospel.

Jesus anticipates the pain his disciples will feel when he dies as the labor a woman endures when she gives birth.  Its sharpness will take their breath away.  Its duration will inscribe itself like a knife in wood.  But seeing Jesus in the resurrection will be like hearing the cries of new life.  Immediately pain’s grip is released and exultation mutes any lingering acuteness.  The disciples’ desires will then be purified so that whatever they ask – understanding of what is going on, capacity to share their ecstasy with others, wisdom to never doubt again  – will be granted.

We naturally do not want to suffer pain.  But we accept it and even embrace it at times as necessary to reach heightened awareness, indeed a whole new kind of life. We should see the pain of death as taking us closer to the Lord by making us ever reliant on Him and by seeing His goodness encompassing more than the wonders of this world.

Thursday, May 9, 2013

Thursday of the Sixth Week of Easter

(Acts 18:1-8; John 16:16-20)

Although Christians comprise a small fraction of the Pakistani population, in raw numbers they are more than two million people.  Missionaries in that land in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries did not convert many Muslims or Hindus but found the animist peoples open to the word of God.  Evidently, all-encompassing religions like Islam have arguments to counter another religion’s claims but traditions without established theological traditions offer much less resistance to new religious preaching.  This idea will explain Paul’s frustration in preaching Christ to the Jews.

In Corinth as in other major population centers of the Mediterranean world in Paul’s days there is a synagogue.  Paul finds it the natural place to speak about Christ.  As a matter of fact members of the synagogue in the town of Berea give Paul a friendly ear, but those of the synagogue in Corinth as in Thessalonica are much less amenable.  Still Paul makes progress in Corinth perhaps because Aquila and Priscilla have already did some spade work in planting the seed of Christ.

Even though we are not willing to give up our commitment to Christ for anything, we still might dialogue with people of other faiths.  Learning their traditions not only broadens our knowledge but likely will deepen our appreciation of Christianity. We believe that Christ died to save all people.  Deliberately refusing to share our knowledge of him by neglecting opportunities to dialogue would mean a loss on all sides.

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

(Acts 17:15.22-18:1; John 16:12-15)

In its Pastoral Constitution on the Church, Vatican II wrestles with the question of atheism.  It says that many shut God out of their hearts out of refusal to acknowledge the dictates of their consciences.  But it also implicates Christians in the sin of disbelief because we often fail to give testimony to the presence of God by genuinely caring for one another.  With this kind of critical reasoning Vatican II exemplifies what Jesus means in today’s gospel.

Jesus tells his disciples that the Spirit Advocate will tell them the things that are coming.  Jesus does not mean that there will be a new revelation for he says that the Spirit will reveal what is already Jesus’.  What the Spirit will do for the Church, as can be testified in the Vatican II documents, is to interpret current events in light of Jesus’ own teaching.

Much has been said of the “spirit of Vatican II.”  Some people think that it is acceptance of almost every proposed change of belief or practice.  But such an interpretation defies the work of the council’s fathers who diligently discerned what the Holy Spirit was saying to them by careful deliberation and voting.  Certainly Vatican II introduced changes for which we should be grateful.  But we must also take care not to misinterpret the spirit of the council as promoting change indiscriminately.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Tuesday of the Sixth Week of Easter

(Acts 16:11-15; John 16:5-11)

It is said that St. Augustine avoided preaching on today’s gospel because of its difficulty!  Still, the passage is not impossible to understand.  To do so, however, we should note that the word convict is too literal a translation of the Greek and does not fit well with each object.  It would be better to say that the Spirit Advocate proves the world wrong regarding sin, regarding righteousness, and regarding condemnation.

The world sees Christians as sinful for believing in Jesus.  This may seem odd since we have a sense that the world does not really care about what one believes.  But the Roman world, at least, had its deities to which people were expected to give homage.  Because of their ancient status, Jews were a recognized exception to this rule which gave Christians immunity for a while.  But when Christians were expelled from the synagogues, the Romans persecuted them as atheists.  The Spirit Advocate (really more a prosecuting attorney) will show the world that the Romans, not the Christians, worship false gods. 

The error of righteousness concerns the Jews’ putting Jesus to death for claiming to be God’s son.  The Spirit, moving Christians to love one another, shows them to be righteous, not those who crucified Jesus. The final error regards the condemnation of Satan, the prince of this world.  Since Jesus is vindicated by his resurrection, his adversary Satan is condemned.  We might ask, “Then how can Satan roam freely seeking our ruination?”  The gospel would reply that Satan is powerless over true believers; moreover, his limited domination will end once Jesus returns in glory.