The Spirit Who Creates and Unifies

I can’t remember who said it, but I once read somewhere that we human beings are the most like God when we create. There’s something inherently wondrous, for example, about writing a poem, or painting a picture, or playing music – anything that springs forth from within ourselves. Or, in a different context, think of how spouses cooperate with God in the creation of new life through the mutual sharing of their love. When we participate in creation, in whatever form, we rise above our status as creatures and share in something godly.

The human spirit of creativity though can go awry. This is perhaps most clearly seen in the Bible in the Book of Genesis, when the inhabitants of Babel desire to glorify themselves by building a tower into the heavens. When the ingenuity of the human spirit is separated from the creative purposes of God, disaster results. What is produced is not something artistic or life-giving, but something destructive and divisive.

Antonio Palomino, Pentecost (c. 1705)

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of Pentecost, the third greatest feast of our liturgical year and the commemoration of that event when 50 days after the Lord’s Resurrection the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles and other disciples. The Holy Spirit comes to inaugurate the Church, to radically reorient the followers of Jesus to make them capable of fulfilling his mandate to spread the Gospel.

How does the Spirit do this? In two ways. The first is by re-creating those who receive it. In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit is the breath of God that gives life to all creation, especially the body of Adam, formed from the clay, into which God breathes life. In the New Testament, this Spirit comes not to give life to our bodies, but to breathe life into our souls – to re-create us in virtue and grace. We see this clearly in John’s account of Easter Sunday evening when the Risen Jesus, who comes to the apostles saying, “Peace be with you,” also breathes the Holy Spirit upon them. The disciples are created anew by the Holy Spirit, forgiven of their sins and made sharers in the divine grace.

The second action of the Holy Spirit is to unify. In Luke’s account of the Pentecost event, the Holy Spirit comes upon the early Church and enables them to speak to all peoples and to be understood by them – Jews and non-Jews of every different race and nationality. It’s clear that this is unification is the reversal of the divisions of Babel – that in the Holy Spirit a common language of love is spoken that unites what otherwise would be divided. The Holy Spirit thus is the ultimate creative force: remaking what had been corrupted, unifying what had been divided.

These two works of the Holy Spirit ­– to renew and to unify – are still happening today, in the communal life of the Church but also in the heart of every believer. When we reflect upon how the gifts of the Spirit are given to us, in order to produce the fruits of the Spirit, we should consider these actions, “How does the Spirit want to renew me? In what way do I need to be re-created?” In the bulletin this week, you’ll find a beautiful quote from Pope Francis from a couple Pentecosts ago that speaks to this point. Here’s just an excerpt of what he said: "The Spirit keeps our hearts young – a renewed youth. Youth, for all our attempts to prolong it, sooner or later fades away; the Spirit, instead, prevents the only kind of aging that is unhealthy: namely, growing old within. How does he do this? By renewing our hearts, by pardoning sinners." The Holy Spirit brings forgiveness, reassurance, and peace. He reawakens within us the belief that things can really be different, be better, and then he inspires in us the conversion and renewal to begin that with ourselves first.



Once we have been re-created ­– forgiven and renewed – then we are ready to work toward unity. I don’t know if we think of division today as an evil, as a spiritual danger, but it is. We may not want to admit, but we have become too comfortable with the seeds of division present among us – certainly as a society, but even as individuals too. Maybe that manifests itself in the fear of someone with a different skin color, or frustration with someone who speaks a different language, or hardheartedness toward someone we deem to be violating law and order in some way. The Spirit here, too, speaks to us – to root out from within our hearts and from society as a whole the evil of racism, the ever-present dangers of partisanship, the systemic corruptions that lead to poverty, indifference, and injustice.

The current pandemic has exposed injustices present in our society, and we have seen in recent days other injustices manifested and even spilling over into violence. As Christians, of course, we always insist upon peace; violence and destruction are not the answer. But we also should wrestle honestly with the questions of why so many people in our country are upset. After all, peace and justice go together; without one, the other is impossible. That’s why Pope Saint Paul VI, whose feast we celebrated on Friday of this past week, was right to say: “If you want peace, work for justice.” As Christians, we have the responsibility to do both. Just as the Spirit worked through the disciples to bring together the different races and nationalities on Pentecost, so too he desires to work through us for harmony and unity in our day as well.

Friends, the prayer of the Psalmist today should be our prayer, too: “Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth.” The greatest work of creativity we human beings can do is to be authentic disciples – that is, to open our hearts to the Spirit’s work of renewal, rooting out the darkness and division that still may dwell there. Only then can we honestly continue the Spirit’s work of unifying rather than dividing, to work for harmony and forgiveness, to labor for justice and to strive for a peace that will last.

"Be My Witnesses"

The Ascension (1775) by John Singleton Copley

Throughout the liturgical year, we celebrate various feasts of events in the life of Jesus. We all know the most important of these are Easter and Christmas, but there are others too: for example, the Presentation of the Lord in the Temple, the Baptism of the Lord, the Transfiguration. These feasts give us the chance to reflect upon some aspect of the life of Christ. Today we celebrate another – the Solemnity of the Lord’s Ascension. We believe that forty days after his Resurrection, having appeared numerous times to the apostles and other disciples, Jesus ascended to the right hand of his Father in heaven. And there he remains, and from there he will return one day to judge the whole world, the living and the dead. We profess these beliefs every Sunday in the Creed, but today we remind ourselves of them and celebrate in a particular way.

However, sometimes feast days like today’s can feel a little distant from our daily lives. We might ask, “Okay, I believe those things – but how are they relevant to my life right now?” Especially in a difficult time, a time of suffering like this current pandemic? It’s a good question. While it’s good to know and recall the doctrines we believe, we sometimes have to work a little harder to understand how they are important for us here and now.

Today’s Gospel gives us the answer. In today’s first reading, we heard the story of the Ascension itself, but it’s in the Gospel that we find its practical importance for our lives. Jesus has gone up to heaven and will one day come back; in the meantime, he has given his disciples work to do. We call this passage from the Gospel of Matthew the Great Commission – the great sending forth of the disciples to go and share his teachings with the world, making disciples of all nations. The Church never tires of this work; it is her fundamental task, her mission until the day Jesus returns. And that includes us, as well – every baptized person, not just the apostles long ago, or priests and bishops today. It’s the calling and obligation of every Christian. To share our faith with others, to evangelize – that is how we strive for holiness, seeking to follow after Jesus so as to join him in heaven.

Still, we might ask, “But how do I do that, Father? Me, in the time and manner of my life here and now?” Another good question. Evangelizing – bearing witness to our faith – can often be done in ways that aren’t as obvious as being a literal missionary. Sometimes, holiness that is quiet and humble can nonetheless impress itself upon others in a remarkable way. I’d like to share with you three examples of this kind of holiness from the lives of saints whose feasts we celebrate around this time of year. While their circumstances are different than ours, perhaps their stories can give us an insight into how we too can fulfill what Jesus commands in our own lives.

Isidore was a farmer who lived in Spain in the 11th century. He was a peasant, and a laborer — a farmhand specifically. He was a simple man, who loved the land, and worked it with great care. He had a wife and a son, although his son died at a young age. Despite his own poverty, he shared what he had with those with even less. He was known by his peers as a man of prayer, and even was believed to have the power to work miracles, especially on behalf of the poor. Today St. Isidore is honored as the patron of farmers, peasants, day workers, and those who work in agriculture.

Rita was born to a noble family in Italy in the 14th century. Despite the fact she wanted to be a nun, her family arranged for her to be married. Unfortunately, it was not a good match. Her husband was immoral, unfaithful, and even abusive. Whereas today Rita might well have had a good reason to flee the union, or even seek to have it declared null, things were different in her time. She remained in the marriage and endured the ill treatment. Slowly, with humility, kindness, and prayer, she had a transformative effect on her husband. When he was killed some years later, she prevailed upon her sons to not avenge his death. Eventually, living in a time of pandemic herself, she entered the local monastery and dedicated the rest of her life to prayer. Today St. Rita of Cascia is the patroness for the lonely, survivors of abuse, those in difficult marriages, and widows.

The third story is more recent. Franz Jägerstätter was born in Austria in 1907. He also was a farmer, and a bit of a wild man in his early years. However, he married a devout Catholic woman and through her influence became a pious man who worked hard to support his family. When Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany, Franz knew he would be conscripted into the army. He also knew that his conscience would not allow him to swear an oath of loyalty to Hitler. His friends in the village encouraged him to not put himself at risk over something as meaningless as a signature on a piece of paper — he could keep on thinking whatever he wanted in private. Even his parish priest told him it would be okay to lie, but Franz knew he couldn’t. He told the priest he was prepared to die rather than commit a mortal sin. Only his wife, Franziska, supported him in his stance, despite the great cost to her and their three daughters. Up until the last hour of his life, Franz could have avoided his fate if he merely signed his name to the oath. Instead, he went to his death at the guillotine, a few months before Hitler and the Nazi regime came to their own end. Although Franz’s story was not well known for many years, it’s become better known in recent decades, and in 2007, Pope Benedict declared Franz a martyr, and he was beatified in Austria with his widow in attendance. Today Bl. Franz is the patron of conscientious objectors.

Franz and Franziska Jägerstätter on their wedding day in 1936. He was martyred in 1943.

All three of these stories are about relatively simple people. While they lived in different times and places than we do, they probably weren’t all that different from us. Each of them, in their own way, were faithful to Jesus’s Great Commission – not by becoming great evangelists or missionaries, not priests or theologians or founders of religious orders – but by listening for and responding to the call of the Holy Spirit. Isidore did it by faithful, prayerful labor; Rita by suffering in humility; Franz by obeying his conscience rather than the voice of the world. We too can find holiness appropriate to our lives and circumstances, and so give witness to our faith to others. And that must always be relevant to what we do.

Friends, at the end of today’s Gospel, Jesus tells us that he will be with us always. Let’s trust in that too – that he empowers us with his Spirit, poured out on us from the right hand of his Father. And he comes to meet us in the sacraments, especially in the Holy Eucharist, where he offers himself as Food for our journey. With these gifts, his Spirit and his Sacrament, he bids us to go forth and bear witness.

Love's Labors

How great it is to be back with you at Mass, preaching from this pulpit to actual people again and not just to a screen. By my count, it’s was just over two months ago that we last had public Mass, and so despite the restrictions and the precautions we are taking, it’s a joy to be gathered around the altar of the Lord again with you.

A lot has changed over the past two months. We have all had to endure difficulties in one way or another, some more so than others. We have had to get used to a new way of doing even the most basic things of daily life, and we’ve been motivated to do them for different reasons. Sometimes others have told us to do them: a business having to temporarily close its doors, for example, or a church suspending public services. Other things we have done perhaps because we have felt a sense of duty or obligation: practicing social distancing, wearing a mask, washing our hands frequently.

But in the midst of those things we’ve been told to do, or felt a duty to do, I imagine we can all think of things we have done because we *want* to do them: perhaps, reaching out to a loved one who lives alone; sharing some of our resources with those less fortunate; even deciding to refrain from visiting friends or family out of a desire to keep them safe. That’s because love is always the best motivation for anything; even more than when they are commanded or done out of duty, difficult things are done best when they’re done out of love.

In the Gospel today, Jesus speaks to his disciples about what they will do after he has left them. He has spent the better part of three years instructing them, forming them – showing them what it means to be his disciples. They have a whole body of teaching to live out, to proclaim – both in word and especially in action. But still, here, Jesus reminds them the reason for all that he has given to them: love. “If you love me,” he says, “you will keep my commandments.” Love is the motivating principle – it’s the foundation for everything else and it’s what makes these commandments doable. And not just a generic love, either – the love of Jesus.

Loving Jesus is probably the best way to sum up the essence of our Christian faith. But don’t we often fall short of that? We have some other motivation: maybe personal benefit – “What’s in this for me?” or a desire to just follow the rules – “I’m doing this because the Church says so” – or a sense of duty – “I guess I shouldn’t do that because I’m a Christian.” While those motivations can sometimes be useful, they all fall short in one way or another of the standard of love. The highest form of following Jesus isn’t something that can be done by a single action or in a concrete moment – it’s something that has to be continually lived out. It’s a relationship, a friendship – to love Christ, and to love others out of love of Christ.

Gustave Doré, The Apostles Preaching the Gospel (1891)

I hope that the last several months have given us all time and opportunity to consider our own friendship with the Lord – a friendship that perhaps has been disrupted like so many other things have, especially without the ability to come to Mass and to receive the Eucharist. But as with any friendship, distance can make it stronger – absence can make the heart grow fonder. Perhaps this time away from our worship routine has made us better understand why we believe what we believe, why we do what we do. To be authentic, our faith has to be rooted in love; to fulfill the Lord’s commandments, we have to love him above all else. We have had the chance to learn that truth in these last many weeks, and no doubt we will have the opportunity to do so again and again in the time to come. Even as we return to public worship, the world is still in difficult straits, and it needs our witness – now more than ever – of what the love of Jesus spurs us on to do. I don’t just mean in the things that relate to the pandemic, although those are good places to start – public safety, using good judgment, bearing our burdens with patience and humility. But even more, we have seen so clearly in these past months how much our world needs the light and the love of Christ. Who better to share that than his disciples, his friends, we who say we love him?

Friends, in the Gospel today Jesus promises the gift of the Holy Spirit, and it is that gift – the divine gift of the Third Person of the Holy Trinity – that the Lord gives to assist us in loving him. The Holy Spirit teaches us how to love – how to obey God’s commandments with joy, how to endure our sorrows with hope and strength, how to express to others the love of friendship with Jesus that undergirds all we do. As we prepare to receive the Eucharist again this day, with great love for the Lord present in this Sacrament of Charity, may the Holy Spirit motivate us to find each day the opportunity to renew our love for the Lord Jesus and to be renewed in it.

Embrace the Change

Over the last two months, we have watched as our world has been turned upside down. The coronavirus pandemic, and the measures taken to mitigate it, have deeply affected the lives of every person. There have been a few positives: for example, more people are staying in touch with distant relatives and the elderly, and also reaching out to help those who are poor and in need. But the overwhelming experience of most of us has been great difficulty: isolation, economic hardship, a change in the most fundamental routines of daily life.

What we have experienced, you might say, is grief – that is, the sorrow that comes with loss. Now, many folks are trying to return to something like a normal, but it’s a different normal than before, and we still face a lot of uncertainty about what we face in the months ahead. And even if some sense of normalcy returns, many things will be changed: some jobs won’t come back, some things won’t go back to the way they were before, and some of our loved ones will no longer be with us. It’s natural to feel aggrieved at all of that.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus directly addresses the grief of the apostles. They are mourning the fact that he has told them he will be going away – first to his death, just a few hours away from this scene, and then after his resurrection, he will leave them again, ascending to his Father’s side, from whence he came. All that the apostles had come to believe, all that they had known – it was about to change.

What does Jesus say? “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” That seems like an impossible thing, right? How can we not be troubled by having everything we knew and relied upon totally turned upside down? The next verse gives us the answer: “You have faith in God; have faith also in me.” Faith in the Lord makes us ready for change. The apostles may not have felt ready for the change that was coming, but ultimately it was for their good. As Jesus says, he’s going ahead of them to prepare a place for them in heaven. He has shown them the way to the Father – he himself is the Way – and now he leaves so that he can allow them to journey on that way. Without the change, they would have been satisfied to stay where they were. But he knows what is best – for them to go out, to proclaim the Good News, to fulfill the purpose God has given them.

Last Supper (1903) by Ilya Repin

Perhaps something similar will be true of us in this moment. We still don’t know how God is going to bring forth some good from all of this change; but as people of faith, we believe that he will. Maybe it will mean a smaller Church, but a holier one, one that is more faithful, one more willing to proclaim the Good News in our daily lives. Maybe it will mean a change of priorities so that we truly remember what is most important: claiming our dwelling place in the house of the Father. Maybe it will mean an increased love for the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, knowing that those things can be taken away from us. In some way, whether at an individual level or more broadly, God always brings forth good from evil. But accepting change by our own power is impossible. We need faith to trust in God’s will and not our own.

Friends, next weekend, we’ll have the chance to return to Mass in person, to receive the Eucharist again, and to receive the spiritual strength we need to embrace this moment of change. It hasn’t ended; it may only just be beginning. But like the apostles, the Lord will lead us on his Way – he will help us to embrace the change that he desires. Let’s renew our trust in him, our faith, so that where he is, one day we also may be.

The Lord's Flock

A number of years ago, when I was still a seminarian, I helped teach first communion classes to the children of the local parish in Rome. One day, we were discussing the story of Noah and the ark, and the question arose, “If you could be an animal, what animal would you be?” The students had lots of creative answers. One said he would be an eagle so he could fly high in the sky. Another wanted to be a shark to explore the depths of the oceans. However, one student had the best answer. She proudly raised her hand and said, “I would be a lamb so that Jesus would be my Shepherd.”

That’s an adorable answer, but it’s probably not one many of us would think of. We tend to view sheep as not very intelligent; in fact, sometimes we insult people who are gullible by calling them “sheep” or “sheeple”. But the Scriptures often describe humanity as sheep, not so much because we aren’t very smart, but because God is a shepherd. The relationship of love, trust, and protection that exists between a shepherd and his sheep describes well the relationship God desires to have with us.

Today’s Gospel helps us understand this relationship even more. This passage comes from the tenth chapter of John, between two of Jesus’s great miracles, both of which we heard several weeks ago during the Lenten season. After he has healed the man born blind, but before he raises Lazarus from the dead, Jesus enters a discussion with the Pharisees about who he is and what he is doing. The Pharisees cannot understand how he has the authority to perform such signs; they thought they were the ones specially entrusted by God to care for the people and show them how to be holy. Since Jesus isn’t part of their group, they criticize and reject him.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus uses two metaphors to explain to them how he is the fulfillment of the relationship between God and humanity. He is the true shepherd, and he is the gate by which the sheep pass into safety. These two images might at first seem confusing, so perhaps a little background is helpful. In first century Palestine, sheep were pastured on the hills surrounding the towns. At night, to protect them from predators and thieves, the various shepherds would gather their flocks together into one sheepfold for safety. The sheepfold had walls to keep intruders out — the only way in or out was through the gate. Since the sheep were too valuable to leave alone, one of the shepherds would himself serve as the gate, sitting or sleeping across the entrance so that no one came in or out without him knowing. In the morning, when daylight returned, the shepherds would return and the gatekeeper would let them in to call their own sheep back out to pasture. The sheep would not follow any shepherd; rather, they would only follow the one whose voice they recognized.

Sina van Houten, Shepherd with His Sheep in a Landscape (c. 1900)

We can see then why these two images are helpful in understanding just who Jesus is. We are born into the world scattered and separated; as St. Peter says in today’s second reading, like sheep we had gone astray. However, in Jesus, we enter to become part of the Lord’s flock. In the early Church, Christians often spoke of the “gate of Jesus” or the “door of Jesus” as a symbolic way of speaking about our participation in the Easter mystery: the Lord’s suffering, death, and resurrection. In the sacraments, especially in baptism, we undergo a change — we pass through from one reality to another. We enter into the Lord’s sheepfold, the Church, and recognize that we have been given a special status and identity as part of the flock of the Lord. This means though that we have to live differently, as well; we have to turn away from sinfulness and error and undergo conversion, so that we live in the light of God’s truth. In a sense, we exist in the world differently than everyone else; we are not distracted by the voice of false shepherds who would lead us astray ­– whether that is those who would do us spiritual harm or the temptations of this world that promise us a fleeting happiness and false security. Instead, as the Lord’s flock, we listen for the voice of the Good Shepherd and we follow him alone into the pastures of eternal life.

Perhaps the challenging time of the coronavirus gives us an opportunity to reflect upon where we fit in this Gospel passage. Are we safely within the sheepfold of the Lord? Or have we gone astray? At times, we can all get caught up in the trappings of this world and the temptation to look for safety and security here. But a pandemic reminds us that the things of this world really are fleeting and unreliable; possessions, reputation, even health and well-being do not ultimately bring us lasting peace. There is only One who can provide true safety and security, the One who has passed through death into eternal life. To claim our place in the Lord’s flock, however, we have to be willing to pass through his gate – and that means dying to the things of this world, to all that it holds out in offering to us. We have to rediscover our need for relationship with the Lord, and to embrace, in a spirit of conversion, our new identity of being part of the Lord’s flock, of listening for his voice alone.

Friends, it may be that it is only after this pandemic ends that we will see how well we have learned to depend upon the Lord in a new way. Let’s not be like the Pharisees, stuck in pride or hardheartedness, but find the humility and self-awareness like that student of mine who wanted to be a sheep so that Jesus could be her Shepherd. It may be that he will do so by asking us to embrace difficulty – even perhaps great sorrow and suffering – but we need not be afraid, for we will be walking more closely with the Good Shepherd. May this pandemic, as terrible as it is, help all of us to rediscover our true safety and security in being part of the flock of the Lord and in listening for his voice alone.