Year A

Jan 10 2025

Scripture Study for

Pentecost was the Greek name for the summer harvest festival held fifty days after Passover (Deuteronomy 16:9–12). It was one of the three pilgrimage festivals in which “devout Jews from every nation under heaven” were expected to come to Jerusalem. At the sound of a strong driving wind these same Jews rush to the scene to discover Jesus’ disciples speaking in their various languages. Ultimately, the Spirit’s work will not be limited to the “gift of tongues,” but this along with the power to speak of “the mighty acts of God” is the most immediate effect of Pentecost. With the coming of the Spirit, the disciples are equipped to further Jesus’ mission to gather “all nations” to God, beginning with Israel.

Socioeconomic divisions in Corinth have been exacerbated by a tendency to interpret different charisms of the Spirit as status indicators. Paul emphasizes that God has endowed the Corinthians with a variety of gifts—different gifts, different forms of service, different workings—that are meant to enrich the community, not divide it. They have not been given to individuals as much as they have been given to the community as a whole, and for the whole community’s benefit. The fact that the same Spirit is responsible for the variety of gifts means that, ultimately, they are meant to unify the one body of Christ, which the Spirit is building and unifying through those same gifts.

In John’s Gospel the risen Lord bestows the Spirit on his followers not at Pentecost but on the evening of the Resurrection. Compelled by fear to barricade themselves behind doors, they nevertheless suddenly discover that Christ has been able to enter into their midst. Although some of his disciples may have good reason to fear even him, having abandoned him at his darkest hour, Jesus greets them immediately with peace. His wounds are offered not as a reproach, but as evidence that it is he, the wounded Jesus, who greets them with twice peace, a sign of reconciliation. Breathing on them the promised Holy Spirit (14:15–17), Jesus empowers them to offer that same reconciliation through the forgiveness of sins.

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.