Homily for April 27, 2008

The Sixth Sunday in Easter, 2008
Acts 8:5-8, 14-17
Psalm 66:
1 Peter 3:15-18
John 14:15-21

Today Jesus tells us that he will not leave us orphans. The Bible speaks often of orphans. On the one hand, infant mortality was exceedingly high in the time of Jesus, with 60 percent of children having died by age 16. On the other hand, adults themselves lived short lives. Most startling is that most children, perhaps more than 70 percent, would have lost one or both parents before they reached 13 year of age.

Jesus often used orphans as a symbol for the weakest and most vulnerable in society. Orphans had no protections either in law or in society. If an orphan was lucky, relatives would take the child into their own homes but only as a slave. In the Roman world, it was not uncommon for orphans to be left in the desert to die simply because the family could not afford to care for them.

When Jesus announced to His friends that he was going to leave them, they became very disturbed. We can imagine sitting at a very nice meal -- as were Jesus and the disciples -- only to have someone drop a disturbing news during dinner conversation. Appetites would be lost. The news would take over the meal. If someone we love deeply announced during a very nice family dinner that he or she had cancer and had only days to live, we can imagine the havoc and the feelings such an announcement would produce. Imagining this, we can imagine the disciples.
Jesus went beyond His announcement of death. But Jesus made a promise. I will be with you always, and he meant it. Now, they all believed that he would die, and they knew it would be a difficult death. But then he says he will be with them always. What did he mean? They had never known anyone who had died who would still be with them.

The disciples had no comprehension of Jesus' promise until 50 days later on the feast of Pentecost. On that day the followers of Jesus would no longer be orphans, they would no longer be alone because the Holy Spirit would be with them. To fully appreciate Pentecost we must find that part of the disciples within us that can feel very, very lost and alone. We must come to know what it meant to be an orphan in order to appreciate Jesus' promise that ''I will not leave you orphans.''

When someone expresses great love or admiration of us, we respond. We thank them. When a spouse or children express their love and trust in us, we respond inwardly with an attitude that says, ''I will never let you down.'' We often do, though our attitude remains the same. We want to be faithful. We try to be faithful.

Jesus' promise that He will not leave us orphans is the same kind of statement. We've been told that we are loved. It is a love that defies full understanding. Just the same, such love should evoke a response from us, and that response is one of obedience. Obedience is not the requirement of love, it is the consequence of it. Just as we inwardly desire to return the love of a spouse or children, we should inwardly desire to return the love of Jesus. Obedience is faithfulness. Jesus' statement, ''If you love me, you will keep my commandments,'' is not a command. Jesus is saying that He will recognize those who have responded to His love by their obedience.

Children, teenagers, and adults like to emulate their heroes. Best friends in high school will dress alike. There is no rule that the teens must dress alike, they just do. We wear team colors. We buy jerseys with the name of our favorite athlete on the back. We want to be like our heroes. If Jesus is our hero, we will wear His colors. Obedience is the color of love and allegiance to Jesus. Ultimately, obedience is an act of love, not an act of submissive duty.

We Catholics rarely talked about or refer to the Holy Spirit, or what was at one time called the Holy Ghost. Yet it is very much part of our spiritual life. Whenever we make the sign of the cross, we make it in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. In the ritual of Baptism there are several mentions of the person’s being baptized with “water and the Holy Spirit”. We have one sacrament called Confirmation which is when a person is confirmed in the Holy Spirit. Our blessings are always make with the Holy Spirit. The presence of the Holy Spirit allows the cleansing of the water to produce visibility or revelation in the lives of those who are baptized.

The Holy Spirit will not leave us orphans. The “Spirit” is promised so that all who believe will know who they are, because Christ is in them and that is the blessing of Baptism. All good things around us and within us come from heaven above. Sad are those who do not know and accept their truth and spend their lives in the darkness of desperate searching. The “Spirit” is sent to remain with us so that we might do the same and remain In Christ and remain ourselves gratefully.

We often make decisions by listening to a gut instinct or inner voice. How do we know whether our decisions are made from listening to that inner voice within us, or we are following the voice of selfishness or keeping up with society? One way is to ask ourselves if that decision will give us greater joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness and self control. Those are all gifts of the Holy Spirit.