Easter Week 7 Friday

Readings: Acts 25:13b-21; Psalm 103; John 21:15-19

The white wine produced in the Italian town of Montefiascone has the unusual name of Est! Est!! Est!!!. The story is that a German bishop on his way to Rome, a connoisseur of wine, sent an assistant ahead of him to track down good wines for his lordship. Where he found a good wine he was to write Est! to mark the place, and where he found a very good one Est! Est!!. (The Latin word means 'it is'.) Arriving at Montefiascone sometime in the year 1111 the bishop saw the words Est! Est!! Est!!! written in praise of the local wine. At least this is the story and the local wine bears this name ever since.

It is a theme in the Bible that something confirmed by three witnesses, something to which there is a triple testimony, is beyond doubt. We read in Deuteronomy that a charge can be sustained only on the evidence of two or three witnesses (19:15), a text quoted in Matthew 18:16 as a principle to guide relations within the Church as well. Where something is said three times it means we have not heard incorrectly, there is no ambiguity about what we are hearing, it is definitely the case.

In today's gospel reading Jesus gives Peter the opportunity to confirm his love for him by a threefold testimony. 'Do you love me?' Jesus asks him three times. 'You know that I love you', Peter answers three times. Obviously it gives Peter the opportunity to undo his threefold denial of Jesus. I do love you, it is true, I definitely love you, Peter is given the space to say. Three times Peter was given a vision in support of his preaching to the Gentiles (Acts 10-11), three times Samuel is called until Eli is no longer in doubt, three times Paul prays to God about the thorn in his side (2 Corinthians 12). These are only some examples of the place of threefold testimony in the scriptures.

But the love we preach is not our love for God, it is God's love for us, and it is fair to ask whether there is a threefold testimony also to this love. The First Letter of John tells us that there is: the water, the blood, and the Spirit, three witnesses, and these three agree (5:8). The water is baptism, and therefore faith, the blood is the Eucharist and love, the Spirit is the love of God poured into our hearts. Here is a threefold confirmation of God's love for us. We have not mis-heard. There is no ambiguity. It is clear and certain. All three testify to Jesus' love on the cross: he gave up his spirit, and water and blood flowed from his pierced side (John 19:28-37).

Or we can appeal to the most profound threefold testimony of all, the Father who speaks to us in creation, the Son who is with us with his wisdom and his saving power, the Spirit whose coming we await in these days and who transforms and renews us in the love of God. Thinking of this Trinitarian confirmation of the truth God has revealed about himself we can say in a much more profound and serious sense, Est! Est!! Est!!!

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.

Sunday of the Ascension (Year A)

Readings: Acts  1:1-11; Ps 47; Ephesians 1:17-23; Matthew 28:16-20

There are two words that seem redundant in the first reading and those are the words ‘from Galilee’. Everything else is necessary there, even the angels’ question ‘why are you men standing here looking up into the sky?’ But it is difficult to see what ‘from Galilee’ adds at this point: ‘why are you men from Galilee standing here looking up into the sky?’ It is as if the angels said ‘why are you men of varying sizes standing here’ or ‘why are you men dressed in a range of styles standing here’. Why are you men with Yorkshire accents standing here … and so on. It seems accidental rather than significant. But perhaps it is significant.

We know from the gospels that the disciples had come with Jesus from Galilee. We know that he and they were sometimes identified as ‘Galileans’ as if that was the name of their movement. We know also that the gospels of Matthew and Mark conclude with Jesus taking leave of his disciples in Galilee or telling them to go and to meet him in Galilee. Perhaps the reference to Galilee has somehow insinuated itself into the account in the Acts of the Apostles because this tradition was so strong, that Galilee was the place where they were to meet after the resurrection and that he took leave of them there. The story ended where it had begun.

Luke, of course, has the leave-taking in Jerusalem or just outside the city. John 20 seems to bring the gospel to an end with Jesus taking leave of his disciples in Jerusalem but then starts up again in chapter 21 to tell us about an encounter they had with him on the shores of the Sea of Galilee.

So there are questions about the geography of the Ascension and room for reflection about the reasons why some of the New Testament authors place it in Galilee while others locate it at Jerusalem. And there are cosmological questions also about the Ascension. Whatever about the place from which he departed, where is the place at which he arrived? Where has he gone in this risen and glorified human body of his and where is he now? Well we know that he is at the right hand of the Father.

But he also tells us, in the final words of Matthew’s gospel that he remains with us always, even to the end of time. In other words he has not gone away at all but is continually among us and alongside us and within us. His return to the Father opens the way for the sending of their Spirit into us which makes it possible for Jesus to be present with us always.

On the one hand we will want to dismiss quickly primitive pictures of a three story universe with regions below this earth and regions above it so that if we were to travel far enough into this universe that we could eventually, possibly, stumble into heaven. On the other hand we cannot simply dismiss all this – references to Galilee, to Jerusalem, to the kingdom of heaven – as symbols of purely spiritual realities, things completely immaterial, because we believe that Jesus has risen from the dead 'in his human body', as the Easter liturgy puts it.

The angels may help us as they help the disciples. According to Jerome Murphy-O’Connor angels, in the New Testament, are well-dressed young men who usually travel around in pairs (a bit like Mormon preachers then). But they appear only at moments of transition or crisis, moments when poor human beings are confronted with the mystery of God at work in Christ, moments beyond our unaided capacity to understand, where interpretation is needed. They re-assure the men from Galilee that Jesus will return in the way they have seen him leave and there is no further point in them standing looking up into the sky.

The High Priest has entered into the true tabernacle carrying not the blood of bulls and goats but his own blood. The King has entered into the Holy of Holies to be seated at the right hand of the Father. This priest and king is Jesus Christ, the Eternal Son of the Father but also our brother, the son of Mary, the one who lived and taught and died amongst us.

It is not so much that he has gone to a different corner of the universe as that the universe has begun to be radically transformed, beginning in Him. It is not that there are two neighbouring realms, touching each other, one earthly and one heavenly but rather that this realm in which we live and move and have our being has been completely taken up into another realm. Embraced by the presence of Christ and the presence of the Spirit, the world is being transformed, even in its physical being: think of the blessings we say over the bread and the wine as we prepare them for the Eucharistic liturgy. He has gone up not to be in another place but so that he might fill the entire universe.

Today’s feast is another moment in the one paschal event. It is about power and authority, the readings tell us today, it is about the one who has been appointed king of the universe and judge of all. God’s power not only raised him from the dead, it placed him at God’s right hand in heaven, far above every sovereignty, authority, power or domination. He has been made ruler of everything. The Church is the body of which he is the head and the Church is the fulness of him who fills the whole creation.

He cannot now be at a distance from us although we can be at a distance from him. This is what sin achieves. But grace ensures that those who have been baptised into his life and live by His Spirit are already children of God. They belong to a new creation, these people from here, there and everywhere, from Galilee, Yorkshire and Dublin, who do not spend their time looking up into the sky but who spend their time trying to observe all the commands he gave. Because he has returned to the Father He can be with us always, to the end of time, and we can be with Him.

Easter Week 6 Saturday

Readings: Acts 18:23-28; Psalm 46; John 16:23-28

The sacrament of Confirmation makes us to be mature Christians, adult in our faith and following of Christ. It means we are always with the Father who, in the Spirit of His Son, abides in us. And it means we are always sent from the Father, as the Son was sent by the Father and breathed the Spirit on his disciples so that they too would be sent.

Thomas Aquinas writes beautifully about this remaining and proceeding, proceeding and remaining, that characterizes the relationship between the Son and the Father, and that characterizes the relationship between the disciples and the Holy Trinity which has come to make its home with us and in us. St Thomas writes of the Word who has proceeded from the Father without leaving his right hand, Verbum supernum prodiens / nec Patris relinquens dexteram.

We can describe those who have been confirmed in the faith in the same way. They have been conformed to the fulness of the paschal mystery. By baptism they follow Christ in his death and resurrection, they die and rise in Him. By confirmation they follow Christ in his return to the Father and in his sending of the Spirit on the Church, they are always with the Father and they are always in the world to bear witness to what they have come to know.

So, as mature Christians we are taken up into this movement, this dance within the Trinity, into which the Father, Son, and Spirit have drawn creation, stretching themselves out, opening themselves up to receive it, making a place for creatures in their heart and in their home. We are to become like this, ever ready to rest and abide with the Father in times of prayer and contemplation, ever ready to get up and go out to serve those who need our care or our attention.