Ascension

Ascension of the Lord, B

Happy feast day, brothers and sisters. Happy solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord. Pope St. Leo the Great describes our joy when he says that "we are commemorating that day on which our poor human nature was carried up, in Christ, above all the hosts of heaven, above all the ranks of angels, beyond the highest heavenly powers to the very throne of God the Father."

Yes, Jesus Christ has taken on our humanity, and, in his Ascension, has brought it into the presence of God the Father in heaven. This means that, in our communion with the Body of Christ here at the Eucharist, we are already seated in heaven and, in some sense, our ultimate destiny is already accomplished. We can now rejoice because our own bodily death, when it comes, will mean nothing more than a continuation of the communion with Christ that we celebrate here at Holy Mass.

In fact, we are living between two great moments in the history of the world, between the Resurrection and Ascension of the Lord on the one hand, and his coming again at the end of time on the other. When will this Second Coming of the Lord come to pass? We don't know. In fact, in the first reading we heard from the Acts of the Apostles, Jesus himself tells us that it is not for us “to know the times or seasons that the Father has established by his own authority.” Rather, the Risen Lord promises: “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Our era of history, this period between the Ascension of the Lord and his Second Coming in glory, is thus marked by the presence and guidance of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit conceived each of us as Christians on the day of our baptism, and the same Spirit raises up in us his gifts, that we may live, as St. Paul exhorts us today in the second reading, “in a manner worthy of the call you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love, striving to preserve the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace.”

In this way, living in humility, supporting one another in love, we, as members of the mystical Body of Christ, will arrive, as St. Paul continues, at “the full stature of Christ.”

Let us pray that the Holy Spirit continues to inspire us to live in humility and generosity, that our life in this world may be a proclamation of Christ. In this way we will fulfill the commandment of the Risen Lord to “proclaim the gospel to every creature.”

The Holy Family

 (This is an update of a homily I gave on this feast day to a group of sisters from the USA during a pilgrimage they made to Rome.)

The good news of Christmas continues to unfold; the mystery of the incarnation continues to reveal itself. Today we are given to contemplate Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, as a member of a family – the Holy Family – together with Mary and Joseph.

And we see that Jesus as a child in the Holy Family is part of the mystery of the incarnation. When we say that the Word of God took on our human nature, this includes being a member of family, for it is part of our human nature to be members of a family, to be children of parents, parents of children, brothers and sisters. And given that the mystery of the incarnation in Jesus Christ not only reveals God but also our human nature as God sees it – and things only really exist in the way God sees them – perhaps this revelation of the Holy Family is important for us in our time, in which we see how forgetfulness of God quickly leads to much confusion – and the suffering that follows – about human nature and the nature and purpose of the family.

To start, consider what Jesus says when his disciples ask him to teach them to pray. He teaches them to pray Our Father.

That’s divine revelation. The unseen God of Israel, of whom no image or idol could be made, and of whom the only name known was the mysterious, puzzling, divine name revealed to Moses, is revealed as the Father.

One of my professors of the sacred scriptures, Fr. Stanley Marrow, SJ (may he rest in peace), was a person who didn’t fit into the usual categories very well. That said, he probably would have felt more at home on the liberal side of things. But one traditional matter on which he would not compromise in any way was God the Father, which he regarded, and rightly so I think, as a matter of revelation. Jesus had revealed to us that God is Father.

So, if at the school Mass or prayers we were supposed to pray to ‘Our Mother-Father’ or ‘God our Parent’ or some such thing, he would walk out, or, more likely, not show up in the first place. For him, the revelation of God as Father of Jesus Christ was at the heart of the good news of the gospel.

And indeed, this good news is that the mission of Jesus Christ is to share the fatherhood of God with us, to make us participants in his relationship to God the Father, to bring about our rebirth as daughters and sons in the Son of God.

In this way we see the holy family of the faithful taking shape; we are adopted into the Blessed Trinity; we have become daughters and sons in the sonship of Jesus Christ, so that on the final day of the Christmas season, a week from tomorrow, the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, we too, the baptized, might hear those words of the Father addressed to us:

"You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

And as Jesus makes us sharers in his being the Son of the Father, so he also gives us a mother – two mothers in fact. From the Cross, he gives us Mary to be our mother, and by the gift of the Holy Spirit, he gives us our mother the Church. And these two motherhoods are not entirely distinct; St. Francis of Assisi calls Our Blessed Mother the Virgo ecclesia facta – the Virgin made church. And as Blessed Isaac of Stella puts it, what is said in a particular way of Mary is also understood in a general way of the Church; so just as by the Holy Spirit Mary becomes the mother of Jesus, so in the same way and by the same Spirit the Church becomes the mother of each individual Christian, conceiving us as daughters and sons of God in the divine sonship of Jesus Christ.

And even more, our virgin mother the Church and we as her individual members extend Mary’s vocation through history, for we are called to continue to do spiritually what she did historically: to receive the Word of God with faith, to nourish it let it grow within, bear it out into the world, marvel at the wonders it works, grieve as it is abused and murdered, and rejoice to see it rise again.

And so, brothers and sisters, children of God our Father in his only-begotten Son Jesus Christ and entrusted to the wise and tender care of our mother the Church, let us rejoice today in this feast of our blessed life as the Holy Family.

The Woman At The Well

 III Lent, A

It’s plain enough that the readings today invite us to reflect on the symbol of water. In the first reading Moses gives water from the rock to God’s people in the desert – and as St. Paul says, the rock was Christ. (1 Cor 10:4) In the gospel Jesus leads the Samaritan woman through a process of enlightenment so that she might discover in herself the living water that becomes in us, as Jesus says, a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

It is very fitting that we reflect on this living water because the purpose of this season of Lent is the Church’s accompaniment of those who are preparing for baptism at Easter. And we too, who are already baptized, are preparing ourselves for the renewal of the grace of our baptismal promises.

In order to appreciate well the depth and beauty of this gospel that we have today, that of the Samaritan woman, there are certain things to note.

But I Say To You

6th Sunday, A

Well. We have a lot of stuff in the gospel today. It’s a collection of the moral teachings of Jesus that makes up part of the Sermon on the Mount in the gospel of St. Matthew.

I don’t think it would be possible to say something about all of it adequately, but perhaps we can find a thread that unites all these sayings of Jesus.

Let’s begin with the refrain with which Jesus introduces these teachings: “You have heard that it was said to your ancestors … but I say to you.”

The Servant Master

 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time, C

“Be like servants who await their master’s return from a wedding, ready to open immediately when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival.” (Luke 12:36-37a)

First of all, what’s the wedding? Who’s getting married? Well, it’s the marriage of heaven and earth, of humanity and God that Jesus Christ accomplishes in his life, death, and resurrection. So now, having accomplished and consummated this marriage of heaven of earth, of humanity with God, the Divine Master, Jesus, returns home.

Riches

18th Sunday, C

“Thus will it be for all who store up treasure for themselves but are not rich in what matters to God” (Luke 12:21) warns Jesus in the gospel today.

So how do we get or make sure we are rich in what matters to God? Well, I think the first step is to recognize that we already are! After all, as St. Paul puts it, Jesus Christ “for your sake became poor although he was rich, so that by his poverty you might become rich.” (2 Corinthians 8:9)

How are we already rich in what matters to God? In many ways, of course, but I’ll note just two big ones.

Welcoming Grace

(16th Sunday in Ordinary Time, C)

The short passage from the Gospel of Luke that we have today, that of Martha, stressed out with much serving, and her sister Mary, listening quietly to the Lord, has a long history of comment and interpretation...

However, for a summer Sunday, perhaps just a few little points are good enough … and the Church, as a tender mother, helps us in this, giving us a key to interpretation in the first reading, that of welcome and hospitality.

(As we know, for the Sundays in Ordinary Time, the first reading and the gospel go together, while the second reading has its own cycle.)