Pentecost (Yr C)

About fifty days ago around the time that the Jews celebrate the Passover from slavery in Egypt to freedom, we celebrate Easter – Our Saviour Jesus Christ’s rising from the dead. Now as they celebrate the giving of the Law to Moses on Mt Sinai, we celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit. The disciples have witnessed the Resurrection, they have seen Our Lord ascend into Heaven, and now He sends His Spirit on them, so that they may be filled with it, strengthened by it, strengthened to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ and the Salvation of mankind.

            It is easy to marvel at the thought of the apostles speaking in more languages than the Eurovision Song Contest, but it also marks the transition of the Apostles from men who were afraid, who hid in the Upper Room, to those who spread the Gospel. We do not however simply celebrate the events of the past, but rather the reality of the present. The Holy Spirit is God’s gift to the Church, which we receive in the Sacraments of Confirmation and Holy Order – a gift to strengthen and empower God’s people, the New Israel, the Spirit of life, which raised Jesus from the dead, which gives life to his Church.

            In this morning’s Gospel Jesus says to his disciples, which includes you and me by the way, ‘If you love me you will keep my commandments’.  We will love God and our neighbour and live lives like Jesus. It sounds simple, but in practice it isn’t. We need to love Jesus and keep his word so He and the Father will make their home with us. In St Paul’s Letter to the Romans we see what life in the Spirit is like. It is a turning away from the ways of the world and the flesh – not despising it, since Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ came in the flesh in the Incarnation, it was in the flesh that Our Lord ascended into heaven taking our flesh into the life of the Godhead, so that where he has gone we may also go. We are to sit lightly to the world and its ways, and through submitting to God to find perfect freedom in him. In the service of the Triune God we can be truly free, free to live for him and to proclaim his truth to the world. If we love God this is what we are called to be, how we are called to live. Only in the Spirit can we enter fully into the divine life of love, and live out this love in the world. In the power of this love we can begin to understand the mystery of Our Lord’s Incarnation, his life, death, and resurrection, and we can let these mysteries shape our lives as Christians.

            God will make his home with us in his word – Holy Scripture and the sacraments of his Church – outward signs of the inward grace which he lavishes on us in the power of his Spirit. That is why we are here today – to be fed with the Body and Blood of Christ, to see the re-presentation of the sacrifice of Calvary, to stand by the Cross so that we may be washed in the blood and water which flows from his side. In this we see God’s love for us, and we are strengthened to live the life of the Spirit – we can remain close to the God who loves us and saves us. We can be taught by his Spirit to remain in the faith which comes to us from the Apostles who first received the Spirit on this day. Let us live strengthened by Spirit, nourished by word and sacrament, in holiness and joy, proclaiming the truth and love of God, so that the world may believe and give glory to of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed as is most right and just all might, majesty, glory, dominion, and power, now and forever.

The Ascension of the Lord Mt 28:16-20

We have come here today to celebrate Our Lord’s Ascension into heaven. The world around us may well find the idea quaint or laughable – or at least physically impossible. But it is no less hard to believe than Our Lord becoming incarnate by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or his rising from the dead at Easter. The world, with the greatest confidence, will tell us that what we are celebrating are myths and fairy stories, but they fail to get the point of what’s really going on.

          Our Lord ascends, body and soul into heaven, to the closer presence of God the Father, and to prepare for the sending of the Holy Spirit on his disciples at Pentecost. He who shares our humanity takes it into heaven, into the very life of the Godhead; so that where he is we may be also. We have seen the promise of new life in Easter, a new life which is in the closer presence of God, which we celebrate today. We can see where it leads – what started at the Incarnation finds its goal and truest meaning in the unity of the human and the divine.

But rather than seeing this as an end it is surely far better to see in it a beginning – a beginning of the Church as we know it – a church which goes and makes disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that Our Lord commanded us. This is exactly where we have been for nearly two thousand years. Inspired by the Holy Spirit they did what their Lord commanded them to do and that is why we are here today celebrating this fact.

But like them we too are called to follow Our Lord’s commands and to share his good news with the world so that it may believe. We are called to live lives where our faith is enfleshed in us – it is not abstract and private, but concrete and public. The Atheist who finds our beliefs laughable now joins forces with an Enlightenment Rationalist who wishes faith to be a private matter rather than a public one. This will not do: Our Lord did not say ‘Don’t do this if it’s inconvenient’ or ‘There’s no need to make a fuss in public about me’. He speaks as one given authority, ‘all authority in heaven and on earth’, so we can gladly place ourselves under His authority, to do his will.

He makes us a promise: ‘Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’ He is with us by sending His Spirit on the Church at Pentecost and ever since. He is with us in his Word, Holy Scripture and in the Sacrament of His Body and Blood. It is through this (and the other Sacraments of the Church) that God’s grace can perfect our human nature – so that we can prepare to share the divine life of love in Heaven. Where our Lord goes we can hope to follow, through his sacrifice of Himself upon the Cross, a sacrifice made present here and on the altars of churches all throughout the world, to strengthen us, so that we may be close to him, sharing in the divine life of love poured out on us.

We can hope to follow Him, and to spend eternity contemplating the Beatific Vision, caught up in that love which is the Divine Nature, sharing in the praise of all creation of the God who creates, who redeems, and who sustains all. We can have this hope because Christ has gone before us, he has prepared the way for humanity to follow him and share in the divine life of love.

Let us prepare for this by living the life of faith, strengthened by Him, proclaiming his truth, praying for the gift of His Spirit at Pentecost, that the Church may be strengthened to proclaim His saving truth and the baptism of repentance, so that we and all the world may sing the praise of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed as is most right and just all might, majesty, glory, dominion, and power, now and forever.

Homily for the Sixth Sunday of Easter: Jn 14:23-29

God does not love us because we are lovely or loveable; His love exists not on account of our character, but on account of His. Our highest experience is responsive not initiative. And it is only because we are loved by Him that we are loveable.

Fulton Sheen Rejoice, 1984, 9

God loves us; we can say this with the utmost confidence because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is what we celebrate at Easter. We show our love for God by keeping his word, by loving each other as he has loved us. We are called to the same sacrificial, self-giving love which Our Lord shows us. It’s a big ask. It should make us stop in our tracks and realise the enormity of the task and our utter reliance upon God’s grace. We show this love by keeping God’s word, by doing what Jesus tells us to do and not simply going along with the ways of the world.

            Our Lord promises his disciples that the Father will send the Holy Spirit in Jesus’ name to teach us all things and to bring to our remembrance all that he said to us. The Holy Spirit speaks through the Church so that we can profess our faith in the co-eternal and consubstantial Trinity. His gift to us is His peace – not as in the absence of war or violence, but something deeper and more profound. The peace that Jesus promises is that which characterises the life of the Godhead: a peace which passes all human understanding.

            We can have peace through our relationship with the Trinity, the source of our peace, and joy, and love. Grounded in this relationship we need not be afraid or troubled – we are free to live lives which proclaim God’s love and victory so that the world may believe. Through God loving us, we can truly love him and each other. We experience this most clearly at the Eucharist when God feeds us with His Body and Blood, which he as both priest and victim offers to God on the Altar of the Cross. That self same sacrifice which heals the world through the pouring out of God’s love feeds us here and now. We are fed so that we may be nourished and share in the divine life. We receive the free gift of God’s grace so that it may perfect our human nature, so that we may go where Our Lord is going and share in the joy, and love, and peace of the Triune God.

            We should rejoice in the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost after Our Lord has ascended, as in this we see the birth and spread of the Church – it’s why we are here, because people filled with the love of God and His Holy Spirit have brought us into His loving embrace. Loved by him, we are to share that love with others, so that the world may believe and share in the source of all love, and peace, and joy. It’s not somebody else’s responsibility but ours as the baptised people of God to follow in the footsteps of the apostles and share what we have received so that we and all the world may sing the praise of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed as is most right and just all might, majesty, glory, dominion, and power, now and forever.