Bless and Keep You

Last week, as I was packing up the rectory, I came across the notes for my first homily here three years ago. Believe it or not, it was for the very feast we celebrate today, the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. In it, I spoke a little bit about my family, including my youngest nephew, who had just been born a few days before. I spoke about how God reveals his love for us through the family – through our natural families and through our spiritual family, the Church. And I spoke about how it was a great honor and joy for me to have become a part of the spiritual family of Holy Rosary parish.

I still feel that way today, even as I now say farewell to you after just three short years. While I wish I might have stayed for a longer time, I also know that this is what God’s Providence has arranged for our community at this present time. In my years as a priest, I have come to believe that God’s wisdom is often at work in ways deeper than we can know. For example, when I came here three years ago, there were some projects that I left unfinished at my previous parish, and out of pridefulness it was bittersweet for me to leave there with those things undone. But the pastor who followed me has been doing amazing work at accomplishing those things – much better than I could have done – and all in the midst of a pandemic. God truly does know better than us what is best for us.

Today’s Gospel shows how the first disciples learned this. When Jesus tells them that he had to return to the Father, surely they wondered, “Why?”. Couldn’t he just stay with them? Jesus knows, however, that the disciples must be made ready for the mission he will give to them, and that for him to continue to be present to them in the way that he had been wouldn’t actually be what’s best for them. What they need is God’s presence in a new, intensified, and expanded way. What they need is the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Trinity (c. 1650) by Antonio de Pereda y Salgado

The Holy Spirit’s coming is also best for the disciples in another way. He enlightens their minds to show them at last the fullness of who God is – a Trinity of Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. All that they will do thereafter will be, in some way or another, a proclamation of this deepest mystery, the Most Blessed Trinity. The words they preached, the signs they performed, even ultimately in the witnesses of their deaths – the disciples will do all of them with the aim of helping others to know and love the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the way that they do.

The same is true here. Just as he did for those first disciples, the Holy Spirit will continue to lead and guide this community. He will be active in your new pastor, Fr. Babu, who is excited to get to know you and to work with you. He will teach you about Jesus in new and profound ways, and with different gifts than I had. The Holy Spirit will also be active in the new deacon of our parish, Deacon Greg Fischer. He doesn’t speak Spanish – not yet, you can help him to learn! – but he knows that he has been ordained for service to our whole parish, and so he is happy to help you in whatever way he can. I hope that he will be able to occasionally help at this Mass, too, so that he can show you by presence if not in word, that he is ready to serve you as well, in the model of Christ the Servant.

And finally, perhaps most importantly of all, I know that the Holy Spirit will continue to be active in and through you. He’s calling you as disciples to continue to proclaim Jesus in the world, just as he did the first disciples. You may preach with different words; you may perform different signs in your daily labors; you may lay down your lives differently than they did – but the love of the Most Holy Trinity who is behind all, who is the foundation of all, is the same. And if you trust in his guidance, in his Providence, the Holy Spirit will lead you into all truth.

Brothers and sisters, it has been an honor to have been a part of this parish family, and I look forward to when God’s Providence will arrange for us to see each other again. In the meantime, let’s pray that we all may remain strengthened by the Holy Spirit and united always in the one family of the Church. May all that we do, as priests and people, be a proclamation of the love of the Most Blessed Trinity, and an offering of love to the same – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

The Divine Guest

Hospitality is a hallmark of the Christian faith. And it always has been – from the Church’s earliest days, when the only place where believers could worship safely was in the homes of wealthy widows, to the modern day, when we challenge ourselves to open our hearts as widely as we open our homes or our wallets to those in need. Whether it’s potlucks or parish mission trips, the motivation is the same: we serve others because in others we encounter Christ. God is truly present in those around us.

But is that all? Is God’s presence only found in others, or is it also within ourselves? It might seem to border on blasphemy to say we can look for the divine within. To be sure, there are plenty of New Age-y ideas along that line that don’t correspond at all with our beliefs. At the same time, it has always been a hallmark of the Christian faith that, in the one who believes, God himself comes to dwell by grace.

Vigil Mass: In today’s Gospel, we hear this very idea, when Jesus references the Holy Spirit whom he will give as a gift to the one who comes to him. We might be familiar with imagining the Holy Spirit as a dove or a flame descending from heaven, but here Jesus uses the image of a spring of living water, welling up in the heart of the one who believes in him; more than a spring, in fact – “rivers of living water” flowing out from within, that nourish and satisfy the spiritual thirst of the believer. Who wouldn’t want that?

Mass of the Day: If we had any questions along this line, today’s first reading removes all doubt. In the account from the Acts of the Apostles, the disciples are gathered together in one place, ten days after the Ascension of Jesus. And then, like a rushing wind, like tongues of fire, the Holy Spirit comes into their midst – and not just into their midst, collectively, but comes to rest upon each of them, *within* them individually. As we are told, it is the power of the Holy Spirit *inside* each of the disciples that enables them to speak in different languages, so that the Gospel message could be proclaimed to all.'

Jean II Restout, Pentecost (1732)

And so, the answer is *YES* – God can be found within us, when by grace, through faith, the presence of the Holy Spirit comes to dwell within us. It’s an amazing idea – a little unsettling even, if you think about it – but also one that should give us great confidence and joy. For as much as we respect the presence of God in others, through service and hospitality, even more so we can draw great strength from the Gift who is also a Divine Person, who aids us, guides us, consoles us, and gives us strength.

How do we receive this Divine Guest? The Church teaches that he comes first in our baptism; the same Spirit who moved over the face of the waters at the dawn of creation moves into us through the washing of water and floods our souls with his redeeming grace. The Spirit comes again in our Confirmation to renew and seal us with the grace of Christ. And he comes to us in other ways, too – by our prayers, by the graces of our vocations – to strengthen us with his sevenfold Gifts: wisdom, understanding, knowledge, counsel, fortitude, piety, and fear of the Lord.

Mass of the Day: In just a few moments, these gifts will be given right here in our midst, when four members of our community – who by the grace of their baptism have heard the voice of the Holy Spirit drawing them to seek the fullness of God’s grace here in our community – will be received into the Church and confirmed. In that moment, what happened in that first Pentecost will happen in this one: the Holy Spirit will descend upon them. Though invisible to our eyes, they will bear the Presence of God in a new way within their souls, and so be ready to at last join us in receiving for the first time the Lord’s Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist. It’s with great joy that we welcome them into the fullness of our Catholic faith.

So, the Holy Spirit comes to us – comes *within* us with his gifts. What then are we to do? What does this Divine Guest, who makes his home within us, urge us to do? Exactly what he called those first disciples to do: to be witnesses of Jesus to the world. As Christians, we believe that the world needs Jesus. It needs his love, his peace, his truth; we are given countless reminders of this, all the time. But we also say that, as Christians, we will proclaim Jesus in the world, that we will show the world his love, his peace, his truth – not by our own powers, but by the presence of the Holy Spirit who dwells within us. And we pray that through him, through the Spirit moving in and working through us, the presence of God will be made known – so that others may encounter him, come to believe in him, and through faith receive themselves his redeeming Presence within.

Friends, on this great Day of Pentecost, let’s make space within ourselves anew, to welcome the Divine Guest who comes to us with the grace of Christ to make us his witnesses in the world. Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them – in us – the fire of your love.