Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Feast of St. Matthias, apostle

(Acts 1:15-17.20-26; John 15:9-17)

A mother was concerned about the bad habits developing in her teenage daughter.  She saw as the source of the girl’s vices the friends with whom she was associating.  So the mother challenged the teenager to give up the friends – a move which was initially resented but in time came to be appreciated.  People are not only known by the friends they have but become like them.  For this reason we can accept Jesus’ words in today’s gospel with great joy.

From the beginning of the Gospel of John Jesus speaks as the incarnate Son of God.  He lives on a completely different, what we might call “higher,” plain than other humans.  Because he also has a divine nature, it seems that humans will always remain subservient.  However, in the reading today Jesus says to his disciples that they have become his friends; that is, they have somehow been raised to his Godly level so that they may share intimacy with him.  It is more wonderful than being born into the aristocracy or being elected to the United States Senate, what is sometimes called “the most exclusive club in the world.”

Just as surely as St. Matthias shared friendship with Jesus, so may we.  Of course, it entails keeping his commandment to love both God and neighbor.  It also assumes a continual dialogue with Jesus in prayer.  We are to listen to his words in the gospel and share with him are own joys and anxieties.  As a result we will find ourselves kind and just like him.

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.