PENTECOST

Readings: Acts 2:1-11; Psalm 104; 1 Corinthians 12:3b-7,12-13 / Romans 8:8-17; John 20:19-23 / John 14:15-16,23b-26

The Spirit is about speech as we see from today's first reading. The disciples receive the gift of speech, each person present hears them speaking in his own language, telling the mighty works of God. In the Old Testament the Spirit came, or even fell, on the prophets giving them speech, making them to say things in the name of the Lord. In the Creed it is one of the first things we say about the Holy Spirit: 'he has spoken through the prophets'. Jesus teaches us that we are not to worry about what we are to say if we are dragged before tribunals for our faith because the Spirit will give us words and tells us what it is we ought to say.

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of words but is also the Spirit of the Word, the Spirit of Jesus. Jesus is the Spirit-filled or anointed one, the Messiah, 'the breath of our life' (Lamentations 4:20). Jesus is the Word that breathes Love, words needing breath if they are to live and breath needing words if it is to have form and meaning.

The Spirit is also about depth. The Spirit is radical. Paul tells us that the spirit searches the depths of everything, the spirit of a human being searching the depths of that human being, the Spirit of God searching the depths of God. In Psalm 18 we read that 'the foundations of the world were laid bare at the blast of the breath of your nostrils'. We would like - or would we? - for the Spirit to lay bare for us the foundations of our world, the depths of ourselves. In fact it is the ministry entrusted to the apostles by Jesus when he breathed the Spirit on them and said 'whose sins you forgive are forgiven, whose sins you retain are retained'. What is more intimate, or deeper, in a person than his or her sins? But the Spirit reaches there, to bring to light and to heal.

It is from within, Jesus says, from the heart and soul of a person, that words originate. They are conceived in our desires, born as motivations and plans, come to birth in our intentions and our actions. This is the spirit of a human being, his intellectual and free nature, the originating place within where there are thoughts for which we have not yet found the words, words that have not yet been expressed in actions or omissions. And what lies deeper than thoughts? When we do not know how to pray as we ought - do not have access to our thoughts and desires - then the Spirit himself prays in us and for us, with sighs too deep for words.

We are given the Spirit to drink. Plunged into the depths of the baptismal font, we are immersed in the Spirit. We absorb Him into ourselves, drinking Him in, but we are also absorbed by the Spirit, enfolded in the fire of His love which has been poured into our hearts.

The Spirit is about speech, and is about depth. And the Spirit also builds a new community. Communities are established through language. It is because we are linguistic animals that we are political animals, Aristotle says. Thomas Aquinas summarises it: 'communicatio facit civitatem', communication builds the city. There is unity and reconciliation where people can find a formula on which they agree, find a form of words to sign together, an agreed statement, a treaty, words to which all can be committed. The Spirit works in human beings to articulate laws to structure a society, to protect justice and the rights of each one who is part of it. The disunity of Babel, the anarchy and chaos that ensue from the multiplication of languages, is undone by the unity of Pentecost. The gift of speech sounds the depths of human need and articulates the heights of human destiny. The gift of speech binds into one the diverse peoples of the earth.

At Pentecost we celebrate the birth of a new community that is centred on the Word that breathes Love, that lives by the new law which is the Holy Spirit dwelling in human hearts, and that is apostolic and missionary, sent to evangelize as Jesus was sent by the Father to show the world the extent to which it is loved by God.

Easter Week 7 Saturday

Readings: Acts 28:16-20, 30-31; Psalm 11; John 21:20-25

The world continues to fill with books about Jesus. As I write this, for example, there are thousands of people around the world reading or even writing new books about Jesus. All aspects of the mystery of Christ are studied, prayed over, and written about: the doctrine He taught as well as the doctrines about Him which the Church later formulated; His spiritual and moral teaching; the parables, miracles and sayings; His passion, death, resurrection, glorification and sending of the Spirit; His grace in the life of Mary and in the thousands of saints whose lives we can read; the writings of preachers, teachers, bishops, monks, nuns, mystics, pilgrims, historians, artists, poets, musicians; the living books which are the individual lives of millions of believers in every century since then, each one a 'fifth gospel'.

The world cannot contain the Word even though it is but one, simple, Word, the Word eternally uttered by the Father, the Word that heals human souls and re-creates them, the Word that breathes Love.

Likewise as I write, there are thousands of people around the world preaching and teaching as we see Paul doing at the end of Acts. Like him, their subject is Christ the Lord, the Kingdom of God which is established in Christ, the fulfillment of the hope of Israel. This writing, reading, preaching and teaching will continue as long as human history lasts.

Long before he arrived in Rome and was able to speak with the Jewish leaders there face to face, Paul had written to the Christians of Rome and concluded his meditation on Christ and the hope of Israel by saying, 'O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways' (Romans 11:33). The gift of the Spirit, however, reveals the depths of God to us so that Paul can elsewhere pray 'that you may have the power to comprehend with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fulness of God' (Ephesians 3:18-19).

St John of the Cross writes that 'there are depths to be fathomed in Christ. He is like a rich mine with many recesses containing treasures, and no matter how people try to fathom them the end is never reached. Rather, in each recess, people keep on finding here and there new veins of new riches'.

So the year continues to run on, and year succeeds to year, and even the course of a long life is not enough to explore fully the riches of Christ. It is not enough even for reading all the books already written about Him. But we continue to mine those depths, to savour one rich seam after another - in deepening love, in growing wonder, in endless, nay, eternal, joy.

Easter Week 7 Friday

Readings: Acts 25:13b-21; Psalm 113; John 21:15-19

In these last days of the Easter season it seems as if the liturgy is preparing us for the life of the Church which really gets going with the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost. Our thinking over the past seven weeks has been guided by three texts, Acts of the Apostles, the Book of Revelation, and the Gospel According to Saint John. On the Seventh Sunday of Easter in Year C we read the closing verses of Revelation and tomorrow we read the last pages of both Acts and John.

Today we are almost there, almost at the moment where the events that established our faith, and the texts that record those events, open up onto our lives, our history, all that the Church has done and faced over the centuries. So we hear today about Peter, and about Paul, and already about their connection with Rome.

In Paul's case, this is where he is going to defend his teaching at the centre of the world. We can imagine that the Emperor will be as much at a loss as Festus about how to investigate Paul's teaching. In fact, not understanding anything of it, Nero will decide to scapegoat this small Jewish sect called 'Christians' and in the ensuing persecution Paul will be beheaded.

To Peter, Jesus prophesies the way in which he will die. At least this is the evangelist's interpretation of an enigmatic saying of Jesus to the effect that in his old age Peter will be girded by someone else and led where he would rather not go. We know that Peter too died at Rome, in the same persecution of Nero.

So these two great protagonists of the early Christian community, whose paths (and swords) crossed from time to time, are killed in Rome within a few years of each other. They died for the same faith, out of the same love for their one Lord.

Three times, Paul tells us, he prayed to the Lord about a thorn in his side, some physical, moral or spiritual affliction which tormented him. He did this (again, and again, and again) until he was re-assured that God's grace was sufficient for him because God's power is made perfect in weakness. Three times Peter denied his Lord, confirming beyond any doubt how weak he was morally and spiritually. But three times he affirms his love for the Lord and, even more importantly, three times the Lord re-affirms his choice of Peter to be the shepherd of the flock. Peter too learned that God's grace was sufficient for him because God's power is made perfect even in the weakness of a rock that seems completely unreliable. 'We may be unfaithful but he is always faithful, for he cannot deny his own self' (2 Timothy 2:13).

We face into the time of the Church, then, perhaps with apprehension and fear. What can we hope to be, or to achieve, left to ourselves? We see only an unreliability comparable to Peter's and a struggle similar to Paul's. In recent years this unreliability has been ever more confirmed and even the sincerity of our struggle can seem fake. We pray that, in the first place, the Spirit will re-assure us that God's grace is sufficient even for people like us, that God's power can be made perfect even in the weakness with which we are completely familiar. We place our hope, not on the memory of cowardly and vacillating men made brave and persevering, but in the Spirit that made them so, the Spirit of truth, holiness, grace and love.

Easter Week 7 Thursday

Readings: Acts 22:30; 23:6-11; Psalm 16; John 17:20-26

'Divide and conquer' is Paul's strategy facing the chief priests and the Sanhedrin. He knew better than most the make up of that body, on one side the Sadducees of the priestly families with their liberal, reductive, style of theology, and on the other the Pharisees, more zealous and religious, believing not only in angels and spirits but also in 'the resurrection of the dead'. Whether the Pharisees understood this as yet another kind of 'spiritual' reality is not clear. Perhaps they did, while Paul had come to believe in the resurrection in quite a different sense.

But that did not matter for the moment. Strategically, the most important thing is that Paul set them at each other's throats. From the perspective of the Divine Strategy of Acts the most important thing is that Paul, having borne witness to the Lord in Jerusalem, is told (by the Lord, in a vision) that he must now also bear witness in Rome.

It is fitting that Paul of Tarsus, citizen of the Roman Empire, one of the most significant figures of the ancient world, should end his career in the capital city of that world. In him will be fulfilled the prophecy of Jesus at the beginning of Acts, that the apostles would bear witness to Jesus in Jerusalem, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). Paul thought of going to Spain (another kind of 'end of the world') but the Spirit of Jesus led instead to Rome.

Today's gospel passage brings Jesus' 'high priestly' prayer to an end. It is, fittingly, a doxology, celebrating the glory which the Son has with the Father before the foundation of the world. A mysterious unity in mutual knowing and loving (what we usually call simply 'the Holy Spirit') is shared with human beings through the life and teaching, death and glorification of Jesus. It is an intimacy in knowing and loving, a union of life and love, for which our most fulfilling experiences of love are invaluable but still very poor analogies.

It is clear in what the glory does not and does consist - not a shining light and rolling thunder, not a blazing storm or a shattering earthquake, but something like a still, small voice, or a lamb led to the slaughter. Unity, loving, mutual knowing. What are such things in a noisy world of conflict, struggle, argument? Paul has no hope of getting round to teaching his accusers something about this rich mystery which is the Father in Jesus, Jesus in us, and so the Father in us. There is the gospel and the rich promise of eternal life which it carries, a shared life even now in the Blessed Trinity. But there are always also the hearers and receivers of the message. Something has to happen in them too if they are to believe what they hear, something like a conversion, a new heart, a veritable resurrection of the spiritually dead.

Easter Week 7 Wednesday

Readings: Acts 20:28-38; Psalm 68; John 17:11b-19

There are striking similarities between the two texts read at Mass today. They are both farewell speeches that have turned into prayers. Paul takes leave of the presbyters (elders, later 'priests') of the Church of Ephesus. He speaks of grace and the gift of the Spirit who has appointed them overseers (episkopoi, later 'bishops') of the flock.

Jesus continues to pray in John 17 for the apostles and for those who believe in him through their preaching.

In both cases there is sadness at parting and in both cases also a certain reserve, even more, a warning, about 'the world'. Experience informs both texts that the Lord Jesus and those who follow His way are vulnerable to various kinds of attack. Paul warns his listeners about 'savage wolves' who will not spare the flock. He is referring to people from within the community who will pervert the truth and seek to lead them astray.

Jesus speaks in similar terms: the world has hated his disciples, he says, because they are the bearers of the Father's word, like him witnesses to the truth, and they do not belong to the world. He prays not that the Father will take them out of the world, but that he will protect them from the evil one. The evil one is also the 'father of lies'. The contrast is between a community living by the truth and a society built on lies.

'It is more blessed to give than to receive' is a saying Paul attributes to Jesus. He commends the leaders of the Church of Ephesis to God and to the word of his grace (a phrase that recalls the reactions of the crowd to Jesus' preaching at the synagogue in Nazareth, all wondering at his 'gracious words').

And both texts end with a reference to consecration, being made holy in the service of God in the world. We tend to react to any kind of exclusivity these days but there it is. 'Consecrate them in the truth', Jesus prays, make them holy in the truth as I made myself holy - set myself apart, dedicated myself - in the truth.

The contrast is underlined, between a life in truth which means justice, honour and love, and a life flawed or even corrupted by lies which means confusion, dishonour and ultimately hatred. The promised Spirit is the Spirit of Truth. The prince of this world is judged. Jesus has overcome the world. It does not mean the disciples are spared. In fact it means that they will excite and attract the anger and hatred of those who prefer the darkness to the light. Jesus in his agony, and Paul in his weeping at Miletus, were seeing the ways in which the ones they loved would be asked to suffer.

Easter Week 7 Tuesday

Readings: Acts 20:17-27; Psalm 67; John 17:1-11

Speaking to the elders of the church of Ephesus, Paul summarises his mission simply: 'to bear witness to the gospel of God's grace'. It is the task of every disciple, by word and action, by prayer and solidarity, to bear witness to the gospel of God's grace. It is the task particularly of people called to teach the faith: parents and catechists, priests and preachers, teachers and spiritual companions. To be a preacher is therefore a wonderful calling, simply to testify to the grace of God, to place that at the centre of our lives, and to make it our only obsession.

A common factor in all these vocations is the need to speak, to find words with which to talk to people about the grace of God. And where are these words to come from? I mean words that will carry what we want them to carry, the gospel of God's grace. We could teach a parrot to say 'the grace of God, the grace of God, the grace of God', and it might serve some good purpose. But we know that the parrot has not entered into the meaning of the words nor has the meaning entered into him. Unless he is a very intelligent parrot indeed, he does not know what he is talking about.

But neither do we know what our words are about when we bear witness to the gospel of God's grace. They are words of eternal life and how can we know what that means? We can know more than the parrot, but the deepest meaning of the words we pass on is a divine meaning, revealed only by the Spirit of God who intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words.

Jesus speaks about this in his high priestly prayer, the first part of which we read today. In it we hear Jesus saying to the Father 'the words you gave to me I have given to them'. Our words have a depth of meaning only when they originate in communion, in some sharing of life, some friendship, some mutual knowledge, which gives the words real purchase on human experience. George Steiner wrote a very wonderful book about this years ago, called Real Presences: Is There Anything In What We Say? His argument there is that without openness to a transcendent, there is nothing in most of what is now said, in the billions of words that are processed every day there is nothing of real human significance.

Jesus teaches us about the Communion in which his words originate: it is his Communion with the Father in the Holy Spirit. This sharing of life between the Persons of the Blessed Trinity is the source of all effective speaking about the grace of God. That Communion supports Jesus in his life, teaching, death and resurrection, and it is into that same Communion that he invites the disciples. 'Everything of mine is yours and everything of yours is mine', Jesus says to the Father, referring to the disciples who have been given to him by the Father and whom he leads back to the Father. We are embraced by the Persons of the Trinity as the Spirit of Pentecost comes to seal our communion with Them, to establish it within and without, in our hearts and in our relationships.

So we dare to speak of the grace of God, although it is a mystery hidden from before the ages, and although the things God has prepared for those who love Him are yet to be revealed. Like Mary and John the Baptist, like Peter and Paul, like believers and preachers across the centuries, we are privileged to be bearers of the word of God's grace. Paul says to the elders that he has put before them 'the whole of God's purpose' and we believe that it has also been shared with us. In the darkness of faith and the tension of hope we have already entered into eternal life. We have come to know God as the only True God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent.  It is not a reason for smugness, arrogance or complacency, because bearing the word of God's grace means also carrying the cross of Christ. And this knowledge which supports our words has come not through any cleverness or strategy of our own but by the gift of the Spirit who enables us to call God 'Abba' and to say 'Jesus is Lord', who provides us with the words we need to speak, however haltingly, about the gospel of God's grace.

Easter Week 7 Monday

Readings: Acts 19:1-8; Psalm 68; John 16:29-33

In the Acts of the Apostles there are the big names such as Peter, Paul and James. But there are also other names, characters who remain more or less in the background and about whom it would be very interesting to know more. We might think of John Mark, Barnabas and Apollos as people in this category.

Apollos was a cultured convert to Christianity who came from Alexandria and who may have contributed to the more spiritual interpretation of the faith that characterised one party in the Church in Corinth. He appears first in Ephesus (Acts 18:24-26) where he preaches enthusiastically in the synagogues but is taken to one side by Aquila and Priscilla who explain the Way of God to him more accurately. For all his sophistication Apollos seems to have received, and believed, an incomplete or distorted version of the gospel. At least it did not coincide with what Paul and his converts were preaching.

Then in today's first reading, from Acts 19, we see him remain behind in Corinth while Paul continues on his journey. Interestingly Paul goes back to Ephesus, where Apollos had been preaching, to sort some things out. He found believers there who had  received only John's baptism and he needs to baptise them in water and the Holy Spirit. Once he gives them Christian baptism they receive the Spirit and begin to speak in tongues and to prophesy. Are we to assume that this was the incompleteness in the gospel they had received from Apollos who had preached there earlier?

We come across Apollos again in the letters Paul sent back to the community at Corinth when it was disturbed by serious divisions. Apollos had become quite renowned there since his name is used, along with those of Paul and Peter (Cephas), to identify one of the factions in the Church. 'I belong to Paul', 'I belong to Apollos', 'I belong to Cephas': this is what they were saying. And what about Christ, Paul asks? Do we not all belong to Christ? What are Paul and Apollos except servants through whom the Christians had come to believe? Paul may have planted and Apollos watered but it is God who gave the growth (1 Corinthians 3:6). In one of his most stirring conclusions Paul tells them not to boast of any man, whether Paul, Apollos or Cephas, since these men 'are yours', along with life and death, the present and the future, 'and you are Christ's and Christ is God's' (1 Corinthians 3:22-23).

It seems that at least the names of Apollos and Cephas served to identify factions in Corinth between which Paul felt obliged to explain and defend his own gospel. Apollos is mentioned again towards the end of that letter, when he seems to have withdrawn from the work (1 Corinthians 16:12), while some time later (Titus 3:13) he is back preaching.

The most striking thing about all this is how ordinary human life is underway along with the preaching and living of the gospel. They are already struggling with all the difficulties that face human beings as they try to live and work together. They need constantly to be called back to Christ, and to his work. It is there, in Him, as Christ himself says in today's gospel, that they will find peace. In the world they will have trouble. This is not the 'world' as opposed to the 'Church' but the world as the theatre in which Christian believers are called to live their lives, the world to which they too belong and which they must seek to convince about the love of God. Take courage, Jesus concludes, I have conquered the world.

I like to think of Apollos as a sincere and cultivated soul, seeking the truth and the right way, sensitive to the ways in which he is getting things wrong. I do not imagine him as a political personality in any way: if others used his name it was their work rather than his that led to this. But he is in the fray of the debates and movements that already challenged early Christianity. There is a strange comfort for us in knowing that it has been like this from the beginning and that figures like Peter and Paul, Barnabas and Apollos had to struggle with the vagaries of human nature, whether in themselves or in others who might have tried to use them for their own purposes. Only in Christ could they - as we - find a peace that this world cannot give.

Feast of the Ascension (Year C)

Readings: Acts 1:1-11; Psalm 47; Ephesians 1:17-23 or Heb 9:24-28, 10:19-23; Luke 24:46-53

To celebrate the Ascension may seem strange. It is, after all, about an ending. Saying good-bye can be awkward, is sometimes difficult, and is often sad. His ascension means the disappearance of Jesus. Up to then he was visibly present with his disciples and now he is, it seems, to be absent. Why be joyful about this? Why think of it as something to celebrate?

At the mid-point of his gospel Luke writes, 'when the days drew near for him to be taken up, Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem' (Luke 9:51).

His 'being taken up' refers to his crucifixion, the moment in which he was 'lifted up from the earth to draw all people to himself' (John 12:32). It can also be taken to refer to his resurrection from the dead. And it is complete in his exaltation to the right hand of the Father. He has been taken up to the place of glory that is eternally his.

In the Temple at Jerusalem the High Priest went up into the Holy of Holies once a year, on the Day of Atonement, carrying the blood of sacrificed animals. Through him Israel asked forgiveness of the Lord and a renewal of the covenant. The only other person allowed to enter the Holy of Holies was a new King, on the day he was enthroned. The psalms and other texts of scripture speak about the king going up to a place of honour in the presence of the Lord, the God of Israel.

This is important background for understanding the Ascension of Jesus. He is our high priest who enters the Holy of Holies, not the earthly one in Jerusalem, but the great and perfect one in heaven. The blood he carries is not that of animals but his own blood, which is offered once and for all to gain 'an eternal redemption' (Hebrews 9:12). Seated at the right hand of the Father, enthroned as judge of all, Jesus is our king and our high priest.

Ascension Day is, then, the original feast of Christ the King. Because of his love and obedience the Father has exalted him and given him 'the name above all other names' (Philippians 2:9). We celebrate his victory, and its meaning for us, the fact that he is become 'the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him' (Hebrews 5:9). As the prayers of today's Mass put it, he has been 'taken up to heaven to claim for us a share in his divine life' and 'where he has gone, we hope to follow'.

The closing verses of the Gospel of Luke are read for Ascension Day this year. Although Jesus 'withdrew from them and was carried up to heaven' the disciples returned to Jerusalem 'with great joy, and were continually in the temple blessing God' (Luke 24:53). They understood, it seems, the meaning of his exaltation. They await the gift of the Spirit, the power from on high that Jesus will send.

Jesus had said to his disciples, 'if I do not go away he (the Advocate, the Holy Spirit) cannot come to you' (John 16:7). Exalted to the right hand of the Father he sends the Holy Spirit as he had promised. This is why we rejoice at his departure, because his return to the Father establishes a new bond between heaven and earth. In sending the Spirit, Jesus fulfils his promise to remain with us always. We become his physical presence in the world, his body alive with his love. If he is with us in the Spirit, where can we be except with him in the same Spirit?

Our lives have been configured to this great paschal mystery of Jesus, to his death, resurrection, exaltation, and sending of the Spirit. Through baptism we enter sacramentally into the tomb with Jesus so that we may also rise with him as members of his body. Through confirmation we enter sacramentally into his promotion to the right hand of the Father to become temples of his Spirit and witnesses of his grace to the ends of the earth.

This homily was first published on torch.op.org

Easter Week 6 Friday

Readings: Acts 18:9-18; Psalm 47; John 16:20-23

What significance could hair possibly have? We are told that Paul had his hair cut off because of a vow. Clearly there was some importance in this for him, but what might it have been?

Like almost every aspect of human life, hair is spoken of many times in the scriptures. The condition of one's hair indicated whether a person was old or young, healthy or ill, and sometimes also therefore clean or unclean. Samson's hair is the source of his great strength and once it is cut off he is at the mercy of his enemies. In Israel letting hair grow was a sign of special dedication to God, as is still the case with Indian holy men. Likewise cutting it off can be a sign of dedication to God as we see in the case of Buddhist monks and nuns. Some Christian religious communities also do things with their hair, once again as a way of expressing their dedication.

Hair is often referred to in the Song of Songs, as one element in what makes a person beautiful and attractive. And there are warnings too that hair might be too beautiful, too attractive and so distracting (even for the angels [1 Corinthians 11:10]. I'm not suggesting that Saint Paul might have suffered from too much sex appeal - we have no evidence for it anywhere else in the Bible!)

Cutting off one's hair can be a sign of repentance and penance and perhaps this is its significance in Paul's case. Within the heart and soul of Paul, it seems, is a movement, perhaps of repentance or gratitude, of desire or supplication, something in his relationship with God which he felt obliged to mark in this way.

All we know about his life at this moment is what we have been reading these past few weeks in the Acts of the Apostles. One could understand that the stresses and strains of the mission might have brought him to a point of near collapse. He has been adored and vilified, accepted and rejected, arrested and imprisoned, interrogated by various authorities, miraculously released from prison and given visions to support and confirm him in his work. He is caught between Jews and Gentiles, not just outside the Church, but within the Christian communities also.

Perhaps his vow is a way of saying to God: I too wish to confirm my acceptance of the mission you have given me, and I want to say that out in a clear way, if only to remind myself of it. In the earliest days of the Bible they set up pillars or stones to mark the spot where an important religious event happened. It is part of our nature, to express through signs and symbols things about our commitments and our relationships (carving our initials in a tree, giving each other rings, prostrating ourselves in public ...)

It remains unclear to us what Paul's vow was about. All we know is that he puts energy and determination into his repentance, his gratitude, his desire ... whatever it is that moves him to make the vow.

Today's reference to Paul's haircut can serve as a reminder about our own commitments and relationships: how are they at this moment? In particular our relationship with God ... what repentance, gratitude, desire, do I need to express, forcefully, today?

Easter Week 6 Wednesday

Readings: Acts 17:15, 22-18:1; Psalm 148; John 16:12-15

Acts 17 shows us Paul preaching the resurrection of Christ to the Jews at Thessalonica and Beroea (17:1-15) and to the Gentiles at Athens (17:16-34). His arguments with the Jews are, not surprisingly, from the scriptures (17:2-3, 11) and his arguments with the Gentiles are more philosophical (17:17-18, 22-31). It is often said that his reception at the hands of the philosophers of Athens helps to explain Paul’s comments in 1 Corinthians about arguments drawn from philosophy, as if he had received a bloody nose from the philosophers of Athens, but this speech is neither more nor less successful than others he gave (1 Corinthians 2:1-5; see Acts 18:1 and Romans 1:18-32). 

The sermon preached on the Areopagus is a rich and significant text. It shows us Paul engaging with the ‘intelligentsia’ of his day, the philosophers of Athens, and trying to present the gospel message to them in a way that would link with their way of approaching knowledge and truth.

The background to the speech is his experience of seeing the city full of idols, a fact which ‘provoked his spirit within him’ (17:16). He argued with anyone who happened to be there, including the philosophers and the cosmopolitan residents of Athens generally. They ‘spent their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new’ while at the same time, Paul says, being ‘exceptionally religious’ (17:19-22). For them Paul is a ‘babbler’ (literally a ‘seed picker’ or, as we would say, a ‘nit picker’) and a ‘preacher of foreign divinities’. But they were interested in anything that was new or strange, so they gave him a hearing.

The themes of Paul’s speech are central to the theological vision of the later father of the Church known as ‘Pseudo-Dionysius’. He was a 5^th century Syrian monk who published his writings under the name ‘Dionysius the Areopagite’, one of the people who was converted by Paul’s preaching at Athens. The later Dionysius had huge influence in Christian theology and spirituality right through the middle ages, and especially in the Latin West once his works had been translated.

So what are the themes of ‘Dionysian’ theology as Saint Paul presents it? One is the ‘unknown God’. ‘What you worship as unknown’, he says, ‘this I proclaim to you’ (Acts 17:23).  Thomas Aquinas, profoundly influenced by Pseudo-Dionysius, will later say that in this present life we are united with God as with one unknown. But this unknown God – the God of negative theology – is the creator of all things who made the world and everything in it. It is this God, says Paul, who gives to human beings life, breath and everything. God made all nations from one (literally ‘from one man’), determining the historical periods allotted to these nations as well as the boundaries of their habitations.

God placed in all human beings a ‘natural desire’ for God (though Paul does not use that precise phrase) since the Creator is to be sought in the hope of being felt after and found. It is a good description of any human searching for God, a searching that is perfectly understandable since God ‘is not far from any of us because it is in God that we live and move and have our being’. We are in fact God’s offspring, Paul says, quoting the Greek poet Aratus, and, at the same time, the works of human art and imagination cannot represent God. On the one hand Paul dismisses all idols that might be thought to represent God and on the other reminds his hearers that the only real image of God within the creation is the human being.

The unknown God will always be foreign, new, and young, a transcendent ‘God of surprises’, who cannot and will not be pinned down by the art, imagination or intelligence of human beings. ‘God does not live in shrines made by man nor is he served by human hands’ (Acts 17:23-24). Those who preach this God – God who is living and true, the unknown yet sought after Creator – will be breakers of idols, whether these are idols made by human craftsmanship from gold or silver or stone, or intellectual, artistic or spiritual constructions made by human reasoning and with which we would attempt to have and to hold God (images, ideas, experiences that we might be tempted to regard as naming or identifying or containing God).

Paul continues saying that the time of ‘unknowing’ is overlooked by God who now calls all to repentance in Christ, the one whom God has appointed to be the judge of the world. His audience becomes uneasy at this turn in the discourse – repentance? judgement? a single individual with a divine mission? And then Paul’s preaching breaks down completely at the next step: God has given assurance of this mission of Christ by raising him from the dead.

Inevitably the preaching of the gospel ‘breaks down’ as it comes up against the things that make faith difficult. Such things are many and varied. Some of Paul’s hearers in Athens had heard enough at this point: it was too foreign to their ways of thinking which might have considered the immortality of the soul but certainly not the resurrection of the body. Some promised to hear Paul again about his beliefs – a kind of damning with faint praise – and a few came to believe, notably a woman called Damaris and Dionysius the Areopagite. 

Paul’s speech at Athens is a wonderful example of how to preach to an educated and cultured audience. On the one hand build connections with their ways of knowing and thinking, travel the intellectual road together as far as possible. On the other hand be ready for the point of breakdown, a point that is inevitable, because the gospel calls all to conversion, to metanoia, to a renewal in our ways of thinking. This conversion is not just moral or religious but will always be intellectual as well.

At a time when many feel the weight of intellectual arguments against Christian faith – questions coming from science and philosophy particularly – Paul’s speech remains of great value as a first encounter between ‘faith and reason’. But its value is to be found not just in the success of his philosophical engagement in the early part of his discourse but also in the failure of the later part where the scandal of incarnation and resurrection provokes and troubles established ways of thinking.

Easter Week 6 Tuesday

Readings: Acts 16:22-34; Ps 138; John 16:5-11

John Lonergan was governor of Mountjoy, Ireland’s largest prison, for almost a quarter of a century. His account of his life in the prison service, The Governor, is a very interesting read. It seems that many of the good initiatives he took to promote the rehabilitation of prisoners were later reversed. The reason given was the shortage of funding in economically difficult times but one cannot help feeling that another reason motivating it was the view (surprisingly expressed to Lonergan by young people visiting the prison) that the things he was doing were ‘too good’ for prisoners. It seems as if society wants its prison walls large and secure, and does not much care what goes on inside them as long as it is not ‘too good’ for prisoners.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that punishment has three purposes: to protect society from people who are dangerous, to re-establish a balance of justice that has been disturbed, and to re-habilitate criminals so that they can return to living in the community.

Today’s readings invite a reflection on prisons and on the administration of justice. Paul and Silas, like Peter before them, end up in prison and are miraculously freed. One of the works of the Messiah is to set captives free and to lead out from the darkness of the dungeon those who languish there (Isaiah 42:7; 61:1-2). One of the ways in which human beings serve the Messiah is by visiting those who are in prison (Matthew 25:39,44). Peter’s  miraculous liberation recounted in Acts 12, and that of Paul and Silas recounted in today’s first reading (Acts 16), are thus signs that the messianic age has arrived. Along with the other wonderful works the Messiah does is the freeing of prisoners, and here it is, happening before our eyes.

There is a poignancy earlier on when the imprisoned John the Baptist asks about Jesus and is told that he is doing all those things foretold of the Messiah – the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them (Matthew 11:5). The striking omission from this list, which clearly echoes the texts of Isaiah referred to above, is the liberation of those in prison. It seems cruel, to say to the Baptist that the Messiah is carrying out everything foretold of him except the one thing in which John has the deepest personal interest. It gives added weight to Jesus’ concluding statement: ‘blessed is he who takes no offence at me’ (Matthew 11:6).

What might be going on here? The liberations of Peter, and of Paul and Silas, are presented as participations in the resurrection. Although not physically dead, the apostles are confined in places of darkness, removed from life, paralysed and held in chains. It seems that it is only after the Son of Man has himself been imprisoned, done to death, sent to the place of darkness, removed from life, paralysed, and has risen to glory from that place, that the full liberating power of the Messianic kingdom is unleashed on the world. Now the places of deepest darkness can also be visited and healed (he went to preach to the spirits in prison, we are told in 1 Peter 3:19).

In the freeing of Peter, and of Paul and Silas, we see dramatic  displays of power – foundations shaking, chains falling off, doors being thrown open. But it is a power that is only constructive, leading to reconciliation, freedom, and faith. Those who work with prisoners seek to establish the same things for them and in them. This is not to be naïve about crime or its consequences but simply to recognize that nobody falls outside the reach of God’s saving care.

The gospel reading today teaches us that the Advocate Jesus will send, the Spirit of Truth, is as much a counselor for the prosecution as he is for the defence. He will convict the world in regard to sin, righteousness and condemnation. He will establish justice, in other words. Only on such a basis – on the basis of truth – can human community flourish and progress. Faith and hope and love strengthen us in relation to Truth, convincing us of its supreme power, and re-assuring us that it illuminates even the darkest of prisons.

Easter Week 6 Monday

Readings: Acts 16:11-15; Psalm 149; John 15:26-16:4

The book that we call 'Acts of the Apostles' could just as truthfully be called 'Acts of the Spirit'. The journeys and miracles, the speeches and debates, the twists and turns that accompany the preaching mission of the apostles, clearly happen on a human level. But it is clear that they are also events to be interpreted on a divine level. If it is true, as it is, that the apostles become agents of evangelization in the days and months and years after the Resurrection of Jesus, it is equally true that the Holy Spirit is, first and last, the agent of evangelization.

So we read today that Lydia hears Paul speaking but it is the Lord who opens her heart. The apostles are, as Jesus said they would be, witnesses to the gospel in Jerusalem, Samaria and to the ends of the earth. But their preaching mission would have borne no fruit had it not been initiated and sustained by the Witness, the Holy Spirit, who is working in them, speaking with them, and acting powerfully through them.

We read in the First Letter of John about the three witnesses that confirm the preaching of the Gospel, the water, the blood and the Spirit, in other words baptism and the Eucharist, the sacraments of faith and charity, but always also the Spirit. In today's gospel Jesus says that the apostles will testify but that the Spirit of Truth too will testify. It is a joint enterprise, a work undertaken together: 'it seems good to ourselves and to the Holy Spirit' (Acts 15:28), Stephen is a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit (Acts 6:5), Simon wants to buy it when he sees the Spirit working through the Apostles (Acts 8:18).

With our ears we hear the teaching of the Lord's witnesses but it is only the Spirit working in our hearts who enables us to taste and embrace the truth of that teaching. With our eyes we see the good works of Christ's followers and the joy of their life together, but it is only the Spirit working in our hearts who enables us to understand and experience the divine origin of the love they share.

Easter Week 6 Sunday (Year C)

Readings: Acts 15:1-2, 22-29; Psalm 66 (67); Revelation 21:10-14, 22-23; John 14:23-29

One of the warmest welcomes I ever received was on arriving at the house of a Polish friend who had lived in Scotland for many years. He opened the door wide, stretched out his arms, and in an inimitable accent that mixed his Polish origins with his years on the Clyde said 'my house, your house'. Think of how different that is to its opposite, 'your house, my house'. The latter means occupation, oppression, colonialization: can I push my way in? The former means welcome, sharing, hospitality, mutual abiding: please make yourself at home.

In these weeks after Easter we often hear texts from St John's gospel that speak about the mutual abiding of God and human beings, something made possible by the work of the Son, Jesus Christ. My Father and I will come to the one who believes in me, Jesus says in today's gospel reading, and we will make our dwelling with him. In sending the Son and the Spirit, the Father has opened wide the door of His heart, he has stretched his arms from one end of creation to the other, and he has proclaimed through the passion and glory of the Son: 'my house, your house'.

We find it very difficult to accept this divine hospitality. It is too good to be true. We would prefer to build houses (and temples and institutions) for God. But the Bible reminds us more than once that it is God who is building a house for us. The Tower of Babel represents all human efforts to build a stairway to heaven, to say to God 'your house, my house': can I push my way in? But the promise of God is that he will give us a city, coming down out of heaven: my house, your house; please, make yourselves at home in the house I am building for you. King David is keen to build a house for God, a temple fit for the Ark of the Covenant and for the Divine Presence it supports. Once again the response from God is 'no, you will not build a house for me, rather will I build a house for you, and a kingdom that will have no end'.

Is it that God is cranky and petulant, jealous of his prerogatives, and determined not to be outdone? No, it is simply that God is God, God is love, and so cannot act otherwise than as He does. God's actions can only originate in love, can only be acts of love through and through. When these actions are for the salvation of human beings, the divine love then takes the form of grace. We spend our lives learning what grace means, learning how to be in relation to God. We want to count for something in the sight of God but that is not the direction in which we learn how to relate to a God who is love. We need to learn how to receive gifts, to allow God's generosity, hospitality and welcome enfold us, rather than striving to be somebody and to do something. If only we could allow God to get on with the work He wants to do in us, dwelling in us and with us, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, God who is love come to abide in our hearts and minds: then we would be preparing ourselves to receive the tremendous love which God wants to share with us.

God's house is no ordinary dwelling. God is not an object in our world, a part or aspect of the universe, dwelling here or there. God is not alongside anything or over against anything but is all through, present everywhere, all within, more intimately in things than they are in themselves. The house God builds for us is mapped completely on to our life, our city, our community. There is no temple in the city of God, no special place where we find God. God Himself is the Temple in the city He is building. There is no sun or moon in this city but the Lamb is the lamp of the city, the only light we need. It is not that we find a place for God in our house, our world, our universe, but that God finds a place for us in His house, the place of truth, justice, love. So the boundaries of our new habitation extend infinitely beyond our need, our understanding and our desire. We are brought to dwell within the house of God which is the Blessed Trinity, enfolded in its arms. 'My house, your house.'

There is actually one human construction that does reach heaven although this was not the intention of its builders. The cross of Jesus reaches heaven, it penetrates beyond the clouds and beneath the earth and out of time. The blood shed on that cross is carried by the Son into the heavenly sanctuary, forever pleading there for us at the throne of grace. The pride of man is undone by the humility of God: 'not as I will but as thou wilt', the Son says to the Father in Gethsemane. Here I am, come to do thy will. It is not a question of 'your house, my house', as if we could take the kingdom by storm, force our way into the sanctuary, bend God to our will. It is always 'my house, your house', an invitation, a welcome, embracing arms, hospitality beyond our imagining, a presence of God in us, a union with God made possible for us, no longer I who live but Christ who is living in me.

The first thing my Polish friend offered me was a glass of strong vodka. It would have been rude to refuse. This aromatic and fiery water (to which I was not accustomed) shook me to my foundations as it burned its way through all of me making me gasp and come alive, like a startled infant ready for its first breath and its first cry. May the Spirit promised by Jesus, aromatic and fiery water, shake us to our foundations as it burns its way all through, make us gasp and come alive, awaken our senses, open our minds, stretch our imaginations. 'My house, your house.' Come, eat and drink, live and grow into Him.

Easter Week 5 Saturday

Readings: Acts 16:1-10; Psalm 100; John 15:18-21

The Spirit works always through human experiences: political, quasi-mystical, social, personal. We see it happening through all of these things in today's readings.

Paul's 'political' decision to have Timothy circumcised is puzzling. At the same time as he is communicating to the churches the decision of the meeting in Jerusalem that non-Jews becoming Christians would not be obliged to be circumcised, he arranges for Timothy to be circumcised. Although he is the son of a Greek father, Timothy is Jewish, taking his ethnic identity from his mother. With an eye to the Jewish party, Paul has him circumcised.

In other contexts, as well as in many of his letters (especially Galatians and 2 Corinthians), Paul speaks vehemently against the judaizers. He criticises Peter for giving in to them whereas here he ensures that the requirements of the law are fulfilled in the case of a Jewish man who has become a Christian.

Perhaps it is unfair to call his decision 'political' but how else are we to understand it? Coming from one who elsewhere describes circumcision as nothing, that it implies the observance of the whole law, and that it has now been replaced by a circumcision of the heart - well it can only be the overall good of his mission that moves him to do this, a decision that can only be called 'political'.

The unfolding of the mission is guided by the Holy Spirit, referred to here also as 'the Spirit of Jesus'. They were prevented or forbidden by the Holy Spirit from preaching in Asia which is why they went through Phrygia and Galatia. They journeyed towards Bithynia but turned away because 'the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them'. What is going on? At the end of Acts 15 we hear that Paul and Barnabas disagree about whether or not John Mark should travel with them this time (he had abandoned them during the first missionary journey). Paul and Barnabas have a serious falling out with each other and go their separate ways. We know from Paul's letters that there were other individuals and groups of 'apostles' preaching in the same places as he was preaching, sometimes trying to undermine what Paul was doing.

There is clearly another 'political' aspect to what is going on. We might be tempted to reduce the unfolding of Paul's mission to this horizontal, political level. Clashes of personality, disagreements about strategy, different emphases in the doctrine being taught: all of this is emerging, and emerging so quickly. But through it all the author of Acts - in this clearly following Paul himself - sees the Holy Spirit at work, the Spirit of Jesus, the primary evangelizer who is the real manager of the mission.

In a quasi-mystical experience a man from Macedonia appears to Paul in a dream and like the Irishman who asked St Patrick to come and walk once more among them, this Macedonian asks Paul to come and preach the gospel to them. This is the key to what is happening through the political, social, and personal disagreements. The apostles and the other preachers of the Gospel are merely instruments of the mission of Jesus. Their thoughts and struggles, desires and decisions, even their arguments and separations, are the physical realities through which God works out His purpose. So Paul moves across into Europe to preach the gospel there.

Even the negative reactions of the 'world', in hatred and persecution, are woven into the tapestry of the Church's mission. So they treat me, Jesus says in today's gospel, do not be surprised if you receive similar treatment. It can only happen in the world since the mission is for the world and the preachers live in the world. But the mission is not simply identified with worldly things - political, quasi-mystical, social, personal. Through all of those things something that is not of the world is being brought to bear on it. Something that does not belong to this world is given to the world and made present within it. The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus. In many different ways and in countless varied circumstances God continues to call preachers and apostles to strengthen those who believe and to preach the Good News to those who do not yet believe.

Easter Week 5 Friday

Readings: Acts 15:22-31; Psalm 56 (57); John 15:12-17

In the first reading we find the other New Testament reference to a man called 'Barsabbas'. Joseph called Barsabbas whose surname was Justus was the alternative candidate to take the place of Judas Iscariot in the college of the apostles. Matthias was chosen instead, by the casting of lots. Today we hear of another man with the same name, Judas known as Barsabbas, who along with Silas, is sent as an emissary from the church at Jerusalem to the church at Antioch. It seems as if Joseph and Judas may have been related, as cousins or even brothers. Or perhaps they were simply given the same nickname, 'son of the sabbath' (there is no consensus about what the name might mean), in the way that James and John were together called 'Boanerges', Sons of Thunder (Mark 3:17).

Might it even be the same person, called Joseph in Acts 1 and Judas here in Acts 15? Judas is described as a leading man in the brotherhood as Joseph had to be also if he was considered a suitable candidate for the office of apostle. But the tradition is stronger that they were two different individuals.

It seems then as if the Church at this stage is still quite domestic even as it is being institutionalised. We have heard of converts in their thousands (Acts 2:41; 4:4) which would have required no little organisation. There are elders and leaders and teachers with authority not only in Jerusalem and in Antioch but in the churches founded by Paul and Barnabas on their missionary journey. Judas known as Barsabbas and Silas are delegates charged with carrying the decisions of a church 'council' to the community at Antioch.

At the same time it remains a movement of friends and family members, brothers and cousins, sisters and nephews, sometimes entire families and households are baptised together. All who share the same faith in Jesus become brothers and sisters to each other. Jesus had taught that anyone who does the will of his Father is his brother and sister and mother. The claim to be of one family now with Jesus is supported by all we are hearing from Saint John's gospel these days: the disciples are taken up into the domestic relations of the Blessed Trinity, made to be friends of God and brothers and sisters of Jesus, by the power of the Holy Spirit who is God's transforming love. 

Today, in the first reading, we get that wonderful phrase, 'it has been decided by the Holy Spirit and by ourselves'. It might seem naive at best, presumptuous at worst, but it is simply taking seriously what Jesus had promised: 'the works I have done you will do also, in fact you will do even greater works because I am returning to the Father.' 'I have made known to you everything I have learnt from my Father.' It is one of the characteristics of friendship, Thomas Aquinas says, that friends can reveal everything to each other. So the disciples received everything from Jesus. And the Spirit promised by Jesus 'will remind you of all that I have taught you.' You - we - are commissioned, sent as the Father sent Jesus, to bear fruit in the world as the sons and daughters of the heavenly Father, brothers and sisters of Jesus, collaborators of the Holy Spirit.

There is now just one commandment to remember. It is the 'great commandment' which in John's formulation is simply 'love one another as I have loved you'.  It is the new law of God's new Israel, the Church, a law which establishes us in the friendship of Christ, which makes all burdens light and all yokes easy to bear, even to the giving of one's life for one's friends. Love is the fulfilling of the law, Paul will say, a love that is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

The institutional concern of the Church must always be not to burden the family of God beyond what is essential. And the one thing necessary, according to Jesus, is to remain in friendship with him, listening to his word and keeping it, remaining in that word. Then by the gift of their Spirit, the Father and the Son will abide with us, they will make their home in us, making us to be, in truth and not just in name, the family of God in the world.

Easter Week 5 Thursday

Readings: Acts15:7-21; Psalm 96; John 15:9-11

Jesus Christ wanted his apostles to become responsible leaders of the community of believers. He did not, however, leave them a blueprint for every possible situation and circumstance. As free, responsible, thinking and choosing men and women the first Christian leaders had to decide how to go about their work for Christ, how to organize the community, how to express the teaching of Jesus in different languages and thought-forms, and how to respond to opposition, persecution and distorted presentations of the gospel of Jesus.

The early Church believed that the Holy Spirit was with them and they believed that Peter had been given a special role in the leadership of the community. So from the earliest times they met frequently in 'councils' or gatherings of Christian leaders. Meeting together, discussing, reporting, sharing experiences, deciding together what ought to be done or said: this is how human beings have always carried on their business.

The Acts of the Apostles recounts many such meetings of Christian leaders: when they decided to appoint 'deacons'; when they wondered whether to trust Paul after his conversion; when the leaders at Antioch decided to send Paul and Barnabas on a missionary journey; when Paul met with the leaders of the Christian communities at Ephesus.

A controversy arose in the early Church about how much Jewish law the new converts from outside Judaism should be required to observe. As a result, a meeting was called in Jerusalem to sort out the problem. Peter, Barnabas, and Paul all spoke. So did James, the leader of the original community at Jerusalem. As a result of this 'council' of 'the apostles and the elders, with the whole church', the unity of the Christian community was preserved, its understanding of the gospel was broadened, its policy was clarified, and its mission was extended. The story of the so-called ‘council of Jerusalem’ is told in Acts 15.

Since that time, many Councils have been held by the church. Basically, these are councils of bishops, even though other church leaders and members are involved also. There have been local councils to deal with local problems. There have been general, universal or, as they are called, ecumenical councils to deal with questions affecting the whole church.

Many of these ecumenical councils have been concerned with aspects of Christian doctrine. The Council of Chalcedon (451) succeeded in expressing the doctrine of Christ as ‘truly God and truly man’ in a way that did justice to the church's faith. Other councils were more concerned with the day-to-day running of the church, while the Council of Trent (1545-1553) responded to the Protestant reformation by introducing an extensive reform.

More recently there have been developments in the type of councils occurring in the church. Vatican II (1962-1965) was basically a 'pastoral' council concerned with bringing up-to-date the church's ways of living and preaching the gospel. It involved a huge number of bishops as well as theologians, lay people and non-Catholic observers.

A Synod of Bishops takes place every few years. It is a representative group of the bishops and others and it concerns itself with pressing issues in the church's life: for example, justice in the world (1971), the family (1980), the laity (1987) or religious life (1994), more recently the Eucharist (2005), the Word of God (2008) and the new evangelization (2012).

National conferences of bishops, priests and laity have taken place in many countries and some of these have produced important documents and made important decisions. In the current reflection on the government of the Church sparked by Benedict's resignation and Francis' election many people believe that the best way forward is a strengthening of local government in the Church, giving more autonomy and responsibility to local colleges and synods of bishops. The experience of the Irish Church, for example, shows that synods of bishops were important in re-establishing Church life in the country after the centuries of persecution.

So councils continue in the church in various forms, and the central role of the Pope in them is clear. An ecumenical council, or a synod of bishops, only takes place when convoked by the Pope as the successor of Saint Peter. Local synods become authoritative for the Church when their decisions have been accepted and approved by the Pope. A time of ‘council’ is still regarded as a time for urgent prayer to the Holy Spirit who guides the church on its way. Even though the Spirit sometimes works through individual, prophetic, figures, the Church believes that the Spirit works also, and normally, through the dialogue, discussion, reflection and decisions of groups of Christian leaders gathered in council.