Homily for the week of May 25, 2014

The Sixth Sunday in Easter, 2014

Acts 8:5-8, 14-17  Psalm 66: 1 Peter 3:15-18  John 14:15-21

         Most of you may realize that during all of these weeks after Easter our last reading known as the Gospel has been from the gospel of John. This gospel was not written by anyone who knew Jesus but it was written towards the end of the first century. It was written for a community in which most of the members had never known Jesus on earth.  But the very few who did remember Jesus spoke of him as The Way.

         Frequently we read throughout the Bible reminders to take care of widows and orphans. These were the true nobodies in Jewish society. They were the weakest in society.  Infant mortality was exceedingly high in the time of Jesus, with 60 percent of children dying by age 16. 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.

         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. Jesus promised that He would not leave us orphans, would not leave us without a family. This is the example which Jesus uses today in the passage which I just read which is known as Jesus’ good-bye to his close friends..

         When Jesus announced to His friends at a supper with them that he was going to leave them, they felt very much alone.   Try to imagine someone whom you deeply cared about, and had dedicated your life to being with.  And this person leaves you, not because of disagreements but because this person had done all that he was born to do.

         Jesus told them he would soon die, but he went beyond His announcement of death. Jesus made a promise.  I will be with you always, and he meant it. Now, they all believed that he would die.  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. 

         Those who did not have a living memory of Jesus, might have asked, “Wouldn’t it have been nice to know Jesus? Wouldn’t it have been reassuring to hear His words from His own mouth? Wouldn’t it be easier for us to believe if we could just see Jesus?” These are questions that maybe some of you have asked yourselves. John’s Gospel wants us to know that we can know Jesus in our lives. Jesus promised to send us someone to be with us, to guide us, to defend us. Catholics call this person the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Blessed Trinity.

         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.

         The Holy Spirit is also with us right now. The Holy Spirit is like our own consciousness.  And the Holy Spirit can be another name for holiness. Holiness is what the Holy Spirit produces in each of us if we allow God to be part of our life.

         All the actions that we are encouraged to do as Catholics such as reading the Bible, going to church, receiving the sacraments, prayers and our personal devotions are all geared to making the Holy Spirit stronger and more alive in us.  Any time we do a good deed, whatever it might be, we do it because of the small voice inside of us that tells us it is OK and it is good to do this. That voice is the Holy Spirit speaking to us. 

         Jesus' promise that He will not leave us orphans is also a sign that we are loved by God. It is a love that defies full understanding.  And our response to Jesus is that we will try to obey what he has asked us to do because we also love him.  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.

         Just as Jesus will always be with us regardless of what we do, he also wants us to love and be a caring spirit to all both friend and stranger. If until now the Holy Spirit hasn’t had much meaning in your life, begin today to realize that everything good and caring that you do, every act of love for others, is the result of this Holy Spirit.  If you let the Spirit of God lead you, you will no longer be an orphan but will be a child of God.