“Your friends make known, O Lord, the glorious splendor of your kingdom”

May 5, 2015

TUESDAY, Easter week five

“Your friends make known, O Lord, 

the glorious splendor of your kingdom” 

The Responsorial Psalm alerts us to the importance of celebrating the action of the risen Christ in the Church: “Your friends make known, O Lord, the glorious splendor of your kingdom” (Psalm 145).

In Acts 14: 19-28 we see a pattern that both reveals the presence and assures the permanence of the risen Jesus in the Church.

1. Paul recovers from his stoning after being left for dead, and “the next day went on with Barnabas to Derbe,” where they “proclaimed the good news….” This is a fulfillment of Jesus’ promise in today’s Gospel: “Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid…. I am going away, and I will come back to you.” In the “risen” Paul Jesus continues to work

2. In Derbe and other cities Paul and Barnabas “made a considerable number of disciples,” and before they left “appointed presbyters for them in each church, and, with prayer and fasting, entrusted them to the Lord in whom they had put their faith.” They left the new church communities provided with all the priestly functions necessary to assure their continuation  (especially, but not solely, Eucharist).

3. On their return to Antioch they “called the church together and reported what God had done with them, and how he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles,” doing what the Responsorial Psalm recommends: “Your friends make known, O Lord, the glorious splendor of your kingdom.” Making known and celebrating the work of God in the Church is an important element in maintaining the community’s faith and awareness of the risen Jesus in their midst.

In John 14: 27-31, Jesus predicted all of this and its fruits: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.” Yes, the Church will suffer persecution and setbacks. But just as Paul and Barnabas “strengthened the souls of the disciples and encouraged them to continue in the faith, saying, ‘It is through many persecutions that we must enter the kingdom of God,’” so Jesus had strengthened the apostles, saying, “I have told you this before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe.” Each time that the work of the Spirit in the Church shows that Jesus has indeed “come back,” we need to celebrate it — because the “world must know” that the “ruler of this world” has “no power” over Jesus. To assure this, “Your friends make known, O Lord, the glorious splendor of your kingdom.”

Initiative: Be a prophet. Recognize, report and celebrate the action of the risen Jesus in the Church — especially as revealed through setbacks and persecution.

“Not to us, O LORD, but to your name give glory”

May 4, 2015

MONDAY, Easter week five

“Not to us, O LORD, but to your name give glory”

The Responsorial Psalm teaches us to experience God by depending on God: “Not to us, O LORD, but to your name give glory” (Psalm 115).

In Acts 14: 5-18 we see again the pattern of the “kerygmatic” or “heraldic” preaching of the Good News: First, pre-evangelization: a miracle raises a question to which the only true explanation is Christ’s action in his risen body (14: 8-14): “Not to us, O LORD, but to your name give glory.”

Then comes evangelization, the preaching of the Gospel in answer to the question (14: 15-18, with Paul’s presumed development). But unlike previous occasions (see Acts 2: 41-47; 4:4, 23-36), there is no record of the third phase, eucharist: the celebration of the Good News by those who believe — presumably because the Jewish faction “won over the crowds, stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city” (verse 19).

To bear witness to Christ as prophets we don’t have to work healing miracles. But we do have to be a visible, living miracle of grace! The “pre-evangelization” essential to effective proclamation of the Good News is a lifestyle, a way of living and acting, which raises questions that cannot be answered except by the teaching of Jesus and the empowerment that comes from his resurrection. The cost of prophetic witness is to live in radical contradiction to the spirit of this world and to risk persecution by those who are threatened by this.

In John 14:21-26 the apostle Jude Thaddeus asks, "Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?” Why do people, even within the Church, resist the prophets and reject their witness?

The answer is that, like the Jews who stoned Paul, they identify religion with observance of the rules and adherence to orthodox doctrine, and find their security in this. But those who love Jesus enough to want to know him will become disciples, studying his words. They will enter into intimate union with God: “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.”

Obviously, right doctrine and rules are important; they are just not Christianity. Christianity is truth and love experienced live with God: “The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send, will teach you everything.” Constant attention to and dependence on God’s action through the Holy Spirit is our only real security: “Not to us, O LORD, but to your name give glory.”

Initiative: Be a prophet. Live in dependence on the Spirit. Seek guidance through God’s words in Scripture. Listen, love and live.

“Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit”

April 21, 2015

TUESDAY, Easter week three

“Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit” 

The Responsorial Psalm is a response to make at the moment of death and at every moment in life: “Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit” (Psalm 31).

These are the words Jesus said to the Father when he died (Luke 23:46). In Acts 7:51 to 8:1 Stephen addresses the same words to Jesus as he dies: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” In both cases they are a profession of belief and hope in life after death, life with God, life “to the full,” that only God can give. And so, to act on this hope is a prophetic witness to the divine life of God within us.

In John 6: 30-35 Jesus says we can have this same “life to the full” now. It is not the unmixed fullness of total joy we experience in heaven, but it is joy and essentially the same. We have now the joy  we will experience in its fullness when we die. That is why the refrain of our hearts should be constantly, “Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.” Into your hands I commend my thoughts, my desires, my priorities and purposes, all my words and actions. “Lord Jesus, I give you my body — as I did at Baptism, as I will at the moment of death. Live this day with me, live this day in me, live this day through me. Let me think with your thoughts, speak with your words and act as your body on earth: Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.”

Jesus says that he himself is the “true bread from heaven.” He is the bread that “gives life to the world.” If we have him we have life and joy. And we can have the experience of possessing him — a human, physical, concrete experience — every time we receive him in Eucharist. He is our life, not only hereafter but here.

Bread is not just life-giving; it is satisfying. It satisfies hunger and gives pleasure. Eating together brings people together in joy. We eat and drink to celebrate.

This is what Eucharist is — “whoever comes to me will never hunger” — and the aftermath of Eucharist is a deeper, more abiding awareness of the presence of Christ in our hearts, of our union of body, soul and spirit with him and with one another. In Eucharist, when the host is lifted up and we offer ourselves with Christ and in Christ, saying with him “This is my body given up for you,” we are saying “Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit — and my flesh, my whole existence, all I do.” In Communion we say it again as Jesus gives himself totally to us and we to him. This is “life, life to the full” (John 10:10). This is Christian joy.

Initiative: Be a prophet. Change the way you participate at Mass. Listen intently to the words, grasp their meaning, make their meaning your own. Live them.

O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth!

April 9, 2015

THURSDAY, first week of Easter

O Lord, our God, 

how wonderful your name in all the earth!

The Responsorial Psalm is our response of faith to Jesus’ death and resurrection: “O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth!” (Psalm 8).

The theme of Acts 3: 11-26 is that through the resurrection of Jesus — as made manifest in the Church, his risen body on earth today — God “has glorified his servant Jesus” and made clear to all that he “has thus brought to fulfillment what he had announced beforehand through the mouth of all the prophets.”

God’s promise to Abraham was, “In your offspring all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” This was not the blessing of prosperity through political justice and peace. Jesus did not come to achieve political reforms. He came, not to change the environment, but to change people who would change the environment. He came to establish peace and justice on earth, but indirectly, by first establishing the peace of justice and love in human hearts. Then in and through those humans, his own risen body, he would work “until the time of universal restoration that God announced long ago through his holy prophets.” The blessing Jesus gives is conversion and transformation of heart: “God raised up his servant and sent him to bless you by turning each of you from your evil ways.” This is how God chooses to “renew the face of the earth.”

What God promised through the prophets of old he will bring about through the prophets of today — through those who apply his teaching and principles creatively to current reality. The true mission of the prophets is not to predict the future but to create it by living it out in preview. The lifestyle and behavior of the prophetic Church should make the whole world cry out in admiration: “O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth!

Luke 24: 35 to 48 makes the point that the risen Jesus is only revealed in flesh and blood. Jesus said, “Look at my hands and my feet…. Touch me and see that a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have.” And he “ate in front of them.”

The role of the Church is to give the risen Jesus visible “flesh and bones.” We who live and work and eat and drink with others must do it in such a way that we reveal the presence of the living Jesus in us. Our witness is in what we embody. If in our actions we “give flesh” to the words of Jesus, then indeed we are “witnesses of these things” and the world will cry out, “O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth!”

Initiative: Be a prophet. Embody the Good News in your lifestyle: in your words, actions and choices; in what you buy, use and produce; in your profits and losses.