Sunday, May 12th, 2024
This week as we draw to a close on our Easter season, I bring you the readings out of order in order that they may actually be in order.
Gospel
Jesus said to his disciples:
“Go into the whole world
and proclaim the gospel to every creature.
Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved;
whoever does not believe will be condemned.
These signs will accompany those who believe:
in my name they will drive out demons,
they will speak new languages.
They will pick up serpents with their hands,
and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them.
They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”
So then the Lord Jesus, after he spoke to them,
was taken up into heaven
and took his seat at the right hand of God.
But they went forth and preached everywhere,
while the Lord worked with them
and confirmed the word through accompanying signs.
Jesus is ending His time of intense encounter with His disciples. He is commissioning them for the next phase of their call. As Christians we too have periods of encounter with the Lord at the end of which He places a call upon our hearts. “Go and be patient with your children.” “Go and spend time with your aging parents.” “Go and be merciful to the friend who hurt you.” These missions that Jesus entrusts to us are more often than not mini missions of the heart that when collected over a lifetime fulfill the edict of “Go and proclaim the Gospel to the whole world.” Jesus doesn’t ever want us to just sit around and mull His words, he is always telling us to “go.” Where is Jesus sending you right now?
Reading I
In the first book, Theophilus,
I dealt with all that Jesus did and taught
until the day he was taken up,
after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit
to the apostles whom he had chosen.
He presented himself alive to them
by many proofs after he had suffered,
appearing to them during forty days
and speaking about the kingdom of God.
While meeting with them,
he enjoined them not to depart from Jerusalem,
but to wait for “the promise of the Father
about which you have heard me speak;
for John baptized with water,
but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”
When they had gathered together they asked him,
“Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”
He answered them, “It is not for you to know the times or seasons
that the Father has established by his own authority.
But 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.”
When he had said this, as they were looking on,
he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight.
While they were looking intently at the sky as he was going,
suddenly two men dressed in white garments stood beside them.
They said, “Men of Galilee,
why are you standing there looking at the sky?
This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven
will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven.”
The disciples are very like us in wanting to be able to get some answers to their clarifying questions. They too would like to know when, where, what, and how. Jesus does not answer our when, where, or what questions, but He does answer the great how: The Holy Spirit, the Counselor, the bringer of Truth, The Advocate. Holy Spirit is our how and we are one week away from celebrating the moment that He was made available to all who are baptized. Spend some time praying to the Father, the giver of the BEST GIFT EVER, for an increase of the movement, wisdom, peace, strength, counsel, knowledge, and understanding of the Holy Spirit in your life. Consider the following prayer…
Breathe in me, O Holy Spirit, That my thoughts may all be holy. Act in me, O Holy Spirit, That my work, too, may be holy. Draw my heart, O Holy Spirit, That I love but what is holy. Strengthen me, O Holy Spirit, To defend all that is holy.
Reading 2
Ephesians 4:1-7, 11,14
Brothers and sisters,
I, a prisoner for the Lord,
urge you to live in a manner worthy of the calling
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:
one body and one Spirit,
as you were also called to the one hope of your calling;
one Lord, one faith, one baptism;
one God and Father of all,
who is over all and through all and in all.
But grace was given to each of us
according to the measure of Christ’s gift.
And he gave some as apostles, others as prophets,
others as evangelists, others as pastors and teachers,
to equip the holy ones for the work of ministry,
for building up the body of Christ,
until we all attain to the unity of faith
and knowledge of the Son of God, to mature to manhood,
to the extent of the full stature of Christ.
St. Paul emphasizes the concept of “one” six times in this excerpt. St. Paul understood that to proclaim the Gospel to the world we must recognize that we are not special, unique, better than any other person. We are called to see ourselves as one in each other, part of a whole. In his book, The Rocking Chair Prophet, Matthew Kelly speaks to this idea of unity, “Throughout history, most problems have been caused by a single idea; the idea that some people are different. But the minute we start thinking we are different, or others are different, divisions emerge, and that’s when things begin to deteriorate. All human interaction is rooted in either acceptance or judgement. Acceptance leads human beings to flourish; judgement causes us to wither…It is written: ‘We are one.’ The key to accepting people is to realize that how you treat me is how you treat yourself. What I do to you, I do to myself.” God has made each of us for a purpose in building up His kingdom here on Earth. Where in my life can I do more building up and less tearing down?
