PENTECOST: Acts 2:1-11; I Cor 12:3b-7, 12-13; Jn 20:19-23

Today we celebrate the feast of Pentecost, the fulfilment of Jesus’ promise to send down the Holy Spirit after his ascension. Once, Jesus opened the scriptures in the synagogue in his native town and read from Isaiah’s prophecy that had been fulfilled in him. “The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me because he has anointed me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners;” (Is. 61:1 NRSV). This is the same Spirit that descended upon the disciples at Pentecost, fifty days after Easter.

Today the Church commemorates Jesus’ bequest to all of us, its members. Also, on this feast day at our Cathedrals, the Bishops celebrate the sacrament of confirmation, a sacrament of re-commitment to our faith in Jesus Christ and to his mission. The Easter Season comes to an end this weekend with this feast. Today’s readings from the Acts of the Apostles tell of the dramatic entrance of the Holy Spirit into the lives of people who have been waiting and praying for the fulfilment of Jesus’ promise. The charismatic moment comes with the Holy Spirit bursting forth like the roaring wind and dispersing tongues as of fire upon those in the room who begin to speak in languages comprehensible to all present.

After the Spirit descended, people of different languages and cultures could all hear and understand….. but what is interesting is…   the people were not speaking the same language… they were still speaking in the language of those different cultures…..  but even so… they could understand….  This is a reminder that the Spirit brings not uniformity but diversity and variety…. But we are all ONE in that diversity because the common language we speak is the language of God… and that is LOVE.

Our gifts are different. Each person has different gifts.  We need all the gifts that each person has so that we can continue the work of Christ in our world.  How different our world looks when we begin to recognise that each person brings his or her own gifts and that we need those gifts to live in the fullness of Jesus Christ.

 

The coming of the Holy Spirit takes the disciples’ fears away.  These original followers of Christ seem to need peace because that is the first greeting that the Lord gives to them:  "Peace be with you!" With peace comes the capacity to forgive the sins of others.  This forgiveness is clearly a gift of the Lord, who loves us.  This gift is given to each of us individually and also to the Church through its ministry of service. Luke pictures each person receiving this gift in a unique way: tongues of fire alight on each disciple drawing each one into a special love relationship with God and making it possible for each one to share this love gift in his/her own way. We each have our own contribution to make, our own way of speaking the word, our own way of singing the song. What keeps the community together as the church is the fact that it is Jesus’ word that we are speaking; it is Jesus’ song of love that we are singing; it is His Spirit that fires our hearts.

 

It is the peace of knowing that we are sharing in the communion of divine love that comes from his heart. This peace did not come easily to Jesus. He shows us the wounds in his hands and side, the wounds that he suffered because he refused to stop playing with fire; he refused to stop loving us. The peace he offers us will not always come easily to us. We, too, suffer hurt. That is why he offers us His Spirit, to strengthen and encourage us and to make it possible for us to rise above our hurts and continue to discover in ourselves the freedom to love. That is why he asks us to forgive: to give and give and give again and not succumb to the temptation to return hurt for hurt.

He says, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” He missions them to his own mission. And what is that mission? “Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven; whose sins you shall retain, they are retained.” The mission is forgiveness.

 

Jesus is now very much present and powerfully active through the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit in the church and in his followers of every time and place. 

On this feast of Pentecost, let us ask the Holy Spirit to direct our lives by constantly remembering and appreciating His Holy Presence within us, especially through the Sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation. Let’s also listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit speaking to us through the Bible and through the good counsel of others, and by fervently praying for the gifts, fruits, and charisms of the Holy Spirit.

 ASCENSION OF THE LORD: Acts 1: 1-11; Eph 1: 17-23; Mt 28: 16-20 5.21.23

We profess in the Creed each Sunday, He rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father." Christ's Ascension was the culmination of God's Divine plan for Christ Jesus – his return to his Father with his "Mission Accomplished." Ascension is the grand finale of all Jesus' words and works done for us and for our Salvation. It is a culmination but not a conclusion. As Jesus is now with God in glory, so Jesus is with us now in Spirit: "Lo, I am with you always." The Feast of the Ascension means that Jesus, His salvific suffering for our Salvation completed, is with His Father in glory. 

If you go to the Holy Land, you see in a small church, called the church of Ascension, the purported footprint of Jesus as he took off in ascension. It is the last visible sign of God's passage through our land. At times, that mount is depicted as a rock, and the imprint of His steps is not engraved on the earth but on the rock. It's as if alluding to that stone which He foretold and which will soon be sealed by the wind and fire of Pentecost. 

During those forty days in which the Lord does not “appear”, but rather, as the exegetes tell us, “lets Himself be seen”. He appears or is made visible even in closed rooms. He is there, and he lets them see him. The Apostles will have had time to get used to their Master's other way of being. He was with them to encourage them from their sense of loss and raise them up from their fallen spirit. His love for them kept him into giving them his encouraging presence.

Some people believe that the dead people will linger around the loving family for about forty days giving them signs and indications that they are around them. Some people see dreams and even physical signs of the presence of the dead person. My father passed away Monday before last, and there were a few traditions that were followed confirming this kind of belief. There are no funeral homes in India. Usually, the burial is done on the very next day except in cases where family members need to reach from far-off places. In our case, two of my siblings and their families and I were away. So, the body was taken to a nearby hospital to keep in a freezer, and when I got home, as I was the last one to reach, that afternoon, the body was brought back home, and people started paying visits. Most of the family members kept vigil the whole night, and some people kept praying dirges and rosaries. The next day until the body is carried to the cemetery through the church with a short prayer in there with farewell prayer reminding of the deceased’s presence in the church during his life receiving different sacraments.

Some of the traditions which I was unaware were that the day the dead body is removed from the cot he was lying, it would be decorated with white clothes and a photo of him is kept on it, and a candle is lit continually till the next special service for the dead is done in the family. This is usually done either on the 41st day or in these days; the number of days is reduced to 13 or 11 or 9 or 7 days. In my father’s case, we did it on the 9th day, so I could attend it before coming away. The pastor comes and blesses each room in the house where the deceased person lived.  The family abstains from cooking any food in that very house as long as the dead body stays in his home. Usually, the neighbours supply the deceased’s family with food. And the family abstains from eating meat till the special service in the family is completed. These traditions indicate that the deceased is in some way lingering around the family, and so it needs to be prayerfully bid farewell to leave and go home to heaven. All of these traditions tell that the deceased person’s soul loves to stay around with his loving family for 40 days as Jesus stayed with his disciples for forty days encouraging them before his ascension. After the ascension, Jesus did not officially make himself present to them.

 

What are the Challenges the feast of Ascension places before us? First of all, our mission is to establish the Kingdom of God. As Jesus rightly corrected his disciples, establishing the Kingdom consists primarily in witnessing Jesus than building up a social institution. The Kingdom of God is neither a territory nor an organization, but it is the reign of God in human hearts.   

All power in heaven and on earth is given to me. Therefore, Go out to the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature. Why should we go and preach? because Jesus has the power, and he is giving that power to his disciples. Mark says that the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that accompanied it”. And Luke emphasizes that they will be “clothed with power from on high”, that is, with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Spreading the Good News to all nations is not a goal that can be attained by human might and craft. This is why Jesus promises to empower the Church with His abiding presence and that of the Holy Spirit. This mission is not given to a select few but to all believers. To be a Christian is to be a proclaimer and an evangelizer. There is a difference between preaching and proclaiming. "We preach with words, but we proclaim with our lives."  

By His Ascension, Christ has not deserted us but has made it possible for the Holy Spirit to enter all times and places. In this way, each of us can be transformed by the power of the Spirit into agents or instruments of Christ.

On this day of hope, encouragement, and  commissioning, let us renew our commitment to being faithful disciples everywhere we go, beginning with our family and parish, "living in a manner worthy of the call we have received."

 EASTER -V-A.: Acts 6:1-7, 1Pt 2:4-9, Jn 14:1-12

Many modern-day gurus suggest that it doesn’t matter where you are heading as long as you are moving and making progress. As clever or profound as this may sound, it is pure hogwash. What’s the point of making a journey when it takes you nowhere or in different directions where we will never get to meet? The Truth is that getting to our destination and knowing which route we must take to get there are both equally important. We cannot discount one while elevating the other.

 

Unfortunately, this is what many modern folks have bought into, and we have a name for it - “relativism.” It is basically arguing that everyone should be given the freedom to choose their own path and Way - that every idea, opinion or thought is as good as another. In this way, by not enforcing “one way,” we can avoid friction or conflict and maintain harmony. These cliched statements are some of the popular taglines we hear: “There is no right or wrong answer; it’s how you look at it,” or “let’s agree to disagree.” As innocent-sounding and pragmatic as these statements appear to be, they actually violate the basic foundation of logic - the principle of non-contradiction: a thing cannot be both right or wrong at the same time. Either one is right, and the other has to be wrong. And when we sacrifice this basic logical principle at the altar of niceties, we are actually rejecting Truth or claiming that Truth is malleable and can be reshaped to fit our agenda. Without a firm anchor in objective Truth, modern man finds himself constantly tossed by the waves of one opinion or idea after another. Without Truth, everything would be a lie.

 

Relativism does not only obscure our destination but makes us regard our origins as irrelevant. Someone rightly noted that “those who don’t know where they come from do not know where they are heading—because they don’t know where they stand.” Most people today would never acknowledge that they are God’s creatures and that human life begins in the womb. Well, the first may require a faith confession, but the second should simply be an observable phenomenon from science. Yet, both are called into question these days because they do not fit within the larger secular humanistic narrative which promotes abortion.

 

Can Catholics accept relativism as a viable belief? Well, the gospel gives us this answer. Jesus, without mincing His words, says it as it is: “No one can come to the Father except through me.” This is an absolute claim that does not admit exceptions. “No one!” Our Lord tells us in no uncertain terms: “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.” Not just any way, or one among many equally valid ways. No! He is the Way, the Truth and the Life! If you find this troubling, remember that many Christians were persecuted, with some going to their graves defending this Truth with their lives, unrelenting to the end.

 

Christ is not just the way, but as St Thomas Aquinas tells us, He is both the goal and the Way - He is both the destination and the Way to get to that destination. He is Alpha and the Omega. St Thomas Aquinas explains it this Way: “In His human nature He is the Way, and in His divine nature He is the goal. Therefore, speaking as man, He says: I am the Way; and speaking as God He adds: the Truth and the life. These two words are an apt description of this goal.”

When Jesus says he is "the life," he means that he is our destiny of eternal life. He is both life and the giver of life. For He says: ‘I have come that they may have life, and have it more abundantly’ (John 10:10).

 

Jesus provides us with another key to the spiritual life by saying that he is the way.  We remember how the early Christians in the Acts of the Apostles were known as followers of the "Way."  The word "Way" here refers to Jesus as the model of moral conduct.  In the Sermon on the Mount, he says to his disciples: "...how narrow the entrance and how narrow the road that leads to Life!'"  He is referring to his disciplined and principled life. 

Other paths may seem more delightful, more attractive by appearance, easier to trod, and less challenging, but there is only one Way that leads to the Father. It is Jesus who is both the Way and our goal because He and the Father are one. This is why the Church must proclaim and continues to proclaim that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life. It is a subversive claim. It is a scandalous claim, but it is a true claim, and for this reason, it is the only claim which can assure us of Eternal Life. Of course, the Church also recognizes that those who do not know Christ or His Church through no fault of their own, will not be penalized. They too may be saved if they follow the dictates of their conscience as prompted by the Holy Spirit. But their salvation, too, comes from Christ and never apart from Him.

 

If we are not willing to recognize Jesus as our Life, we are not going to get eternal life. Are we on The Way that leads to eternal life? Jesus says that he is in the Father and the Father is in Him (Jn 14:11). Are we in Jesus that we are already at the destination, our Eternal Life? Let’s abandon all the other ways that we are on and come to the Way.