Easter

Jan 10 2025

Prepare for the Spirit, Together and in Prayer

Have you ever wondered why we don’t have a liturgical season that specifically leads to Pentecost? We have Advent to get ready for Christmas. We have Lent to cleanse our hearts for Easter. Why not a unique time to prepare ourselves for the indwelling of the Spirit and the equipping for mission?

Or do we?

In today’s first reading, the apostles and the broader group of Easter witnesses gather to pray. They are getting ready. They may not have consciously realized it, but we can see it clearly in hindsight: they are on another edge of time, the edge of some happening that is about to be personally life-changing and historically world-changing. They are getting ready for Pentecost.

Change experts say that there are stages to prepare to make a significant change that lasts. If you want to lose weight, first take some time to analyze what you eat and when and why. Then plan how to diet accordingly. If you intend to move to a new country, take some time to learn the language and the customs and prepare yourself mentally to make that radical shift. Enduring change requires a time of preparation.

God must be the original change expert. Wisely, Jesus did not throw the disciples into mission right away. Luke says that he taught them how to understand the scriptures. He repeatedly asked them to pray and prepare. It will not be an easy task that he asks of them. They will be persecuted. They will share in his sufferings. In today’s Gospel, he prays for them to be one. He wants to make sure that they have the tools needed to carry out the mission—both the empowerment of the Spirit and the strength of community.

Holy saints who have gone before us, pray for that for us as well.

Consider/Discuss

Do we have the tools that we need to carry out Christ’s mission? Are we as Holy Spirit–empowered as we need to be? Is our community strong? How can we pray and plan to allow God’s revitalization to happen?
The Holy Spirit is often said to be the most “overlooked” member of the Trinity, especially in the western Church. How can we liturgically elevate the feast of Pentecost so that the Spirit’s empowerment and mission also get their due?

Living and Praying the Word

Spirit of the Living God, your church on earth needs you. Help us to do our part. We consecrate ourselves to you in whatever walk of life you have called us. Help us to devote ourselves to prayer for the church and your fullness. You rushed in upon the disciples and changed them into holy men and women. Rush upon us this week too as we prepare our hearts for your feast.

Jan 10 2025

Scripture Study for

At his ascension, Jesus had ordered the apostles to remain in Jerusalem to await their baptism by the Holy Spirit (1:4–5). Now they return to Jerusalem just across the Kidron Valley from Mount Olivet—no further than a Jew was allowed to walk on the Sabbath. It is characteristic of Acts that Jesus’ followers pray together at important moments, as they do here. The presence of the women, including the mother of Jesus, underscores the important role that women will continue to play in Luke’s account. The list of the eleven apostles (minus Judas Iscariot) sets the stage for his replacement in the following passage (1:15–26).

Peter exhorts his audience to make sure that if they suffer, it is for the right reason. As he has already pointed out several times, Christ himself suffered, and so it is to be expected that his followers will, too. Yet as long as they are being insulted or suffering for the name of Christ, they have cause to rejoice, for his experience of glory will be theirs, too. Not all suffering is cause for rejoicing, of course, but only unjust suffering. Suffering as a result of grievous sin, of course, does not reflect the suffering of Christ, and so does not lead to glory.

In his prayer to the Father at the Last Supper, Jesus states a central theme of John’s Gospel: eternal life consists in knowing the Father and the Son he sent. Jesus has given glory to God by making the Father known on earth. Now he asks the Father to give him the glory he already possesses as the Word who came into the world (1:1–14). As the Prologue states, that world did not receive the Word; Jesus affirms here that only those whom God had given him “out of the world” believed in him. The world here means those aspects of human reality that are opposed to God. This is why Jesus does not pray “for the world,” which is implacably opposed to him, but only for those who have believed in him and whom he now leaves, for the time being, in the midst of that hostile world.

Jan 10 2025

Going, Going . . . Not Gone

“Why are you standing there looking at the sky?” my friend asked as we traveled across campus. “Look at the clouds!” I exclaimed. The clouds in the summer at Notre Dame are glorious. The moisture from nearby Lake Michigan makes them radiant in the blue sky. I love clouds. I love flying because of the elation of soaring up through cumulus clouds. I like climbing mountains, and the resulting exhausted joy of looking down at the clouds it brings. I remember one bone-weary-beyond-weary, emotionally exhausted day when I looked up at the clouds and yelled, “Come any time now, Lord! What are you waiting for?” I smile inside when the scriptures put the sky and clouds and significant events together—Elijah’s chariot; Jesus’ baptism, transfiguration, and ascension. It fires the imagination.

The disciples lived solidly on the ground. They never flew in an airplane. Yet the heavens in Israel are also glorious. The shimmer of the moonlight during a night of fishing, the sparkle that bounces up from the Sea of Galilee in the day, the glistening of the sun over the Mediterranean—to “look up” probably fired the disciples’ hearts as well.

The Ascension marks Luke’s conclusion to Jesus’ earthly ministry. If he had stayed, the disciples could still have slapped him on the back with a joke and he would not have minded. He could have continued to heal the sick and the blind. But he would have been limited to contacting those who were geographically close to him.

Jesus is now physically gone. Yet at the same time, Jesus is here. We can taste his presence. We can feel it. We can know it. Though Jesus has gone “into the clouds,” he is closer than he would have been if he had physically stayed among us. The Lord is near to us. Always.

Consider/Discuss

It is a paradox of our faith that the God of distance is also the God of nearness. When we put “a face” to the divine, which one more freely arises in our spiritual imagination—distance or nearness? Why does it matter that we envision both?
Think of someone you love dearly who has departed in death. How have you (or have you not) felt closer to that person now that he or she dwells in the communion of saints? Describe what that experience is like.

Living and Praying with the Word

Lord, you are highly exalted, King over all the earth. You rule over nations. You keep the stars in their courses. At the same time, you are here. You are near. How can this be? You have said that you will be with us always, to the end of the age. When we take you for granted, show us the surpassing greatness of your strength. When we shy away from your power, be our divine Tenderness. Come, Lord Jesus! Come at the end of the age. Please come now. We need you. Let us be “filled with the fullness of all things” in every way.

Jan 09 2025

The Spirit’s Joy

I was having a conversation with a well-educated Catholic layman, who asked me what I was writing about. I said, “Mission.” His eyes lit up. “You should go talk to Father M.; he spent a lot of time in Africa!” I grinned. Mission: the word evokes exotic places and visiting priests or nuns telling hair-raising stories. Many people of faith still interpret “mission” as something someone else does somewhere else. What is expected is to give money to the “missions.”

Yet mission also means “purpose.” Researchers tell us that a personal sense of purpose leads to greater well-being. A famous saying is, “The two most important days in your life are the day that you were born and the day that you find out why.” Where does Christian purpose come from? Why are we here?

Jesus promises that the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, will be with us always. As we are washed with that indwelling tender Spirit, we in turn fall in love. Daily life is no longer the same. We may be fishermen or computer programmers, students or professionals, preachers or lay ministers, parents or grandparents—when we encounter the friendship of the living God, we are changed. We are filled with radiant joy. Mission is not just something someone else does somewhere else. Mission is what we do, right here, right now. It doesn’t matter so much what we do in daily life, but how we do it. The Holy Spirit’s joy gives us purpose.

As Pentecost approaches, we can prepare to be empowered and sent out into our ordinary twenty-first–century lives to be extraordinary people. This is our calling, our obligation. This is also our delight. We are to be an enthusiastic people of purpose, with determination, resolution, drive, tenacity, and commitment to living Jesus’ joy-filled way of life.

Consider/Discuss

One of the tensions in the last five weeks of the Easter season is the contrast between the first readings from Acts, which tell stories of what happens after Pentecost, and the Gospels which are rich with Jesus’ admonitions to help the disciples get ready for Pentecost. How do our lives dwell within that paradox—living in the Spirit now while also waiting for the Spirit’s fullness to come?
We are given a mission to be light for the world. We are filled with the Spirit to accomplish that mission. To live for Jesus—is that our joy or our obligation—or both? What do we see as our purpose in everyday life?

Living and Praying with the Word

Come, Holy Spirit! We need a new Pentecost, a revival of faith. Our world needs renewal. We cannot do this by ourselves. We need you. Come with your rushing wind. Come with your mighty power. Come, hidden joy of the world. We pray together in deep need: come, Holy Spirit and renew the hearts of your faithful.

Jan 09 2025

Scripture Study for

In Acts, the gospel proclamation radiates from Jerusalem, eventually reaching Rome. Just previous to this passage, we read that persecution in Jerusalem has scattered the disciples “throughout the countryside of Judea and Samaria” (8:1). Philip, one of the seven “deacons” chosen in last week’s reading, finds himself among the Samaritans, a people long estranged from Jews. His preaching of the Jewish Messiah, accompanied by healings and exorcisms, leads nevertheless to many being baptized. This might be considered something of a reconciliation between Jew and Samaritan, and therefore a sign of the kingdom of God. The effect of the baptisms is completed with the bestowal of the Holy Spirit through the ministry of the apostles.

The letter of Peter supports persecuted Christians in their struggle to remain faithful to Christ. Echoing one of the Beatitudes, the apostle reminds his audience that they are blessed who suffer because of righteousness (3:14). Righteousness means, among other things, responding to hostility as did Christ, the Lord of their hearts: with peace and gentleness. The animosity they face for being Christians constitutes a temptation to respond in kind, a temptation that should be resisted, lest they act with a bad conscience and do evil. Those who suffer for Christ can be strengthened by the reminder that he too suffered and although he died “in the flesh,” he now lives “in the Spirit.” His followers can expect the same.

The Last Supper discourse continues with Jesus’ promise of the Spirit. He has just assured the apostles that he will not abandon them but will return to take them to the Father (see last week’s Gospel). Now he promises them that in the meantime, he will send “another” Advocate, suggesting that the Spirit will do for them what Jesus did. And indeed the Spirit is a Spirit of truth, as Jesus himself is the truth (14:6). He then reverts to his promise to return, using language that emphasizes the mutual indwelling of Christ and his followers. It is on the basis of this indwelling that the followers are commanded to love Jesus, and thus be loved by the Father and by Jesus. To those who love, God the Father and the Son will be revealed.