Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle C

Luke 7:11-17

The Church presents two stories for our contemplation. They are similar in that the son of a widow is raised from the dead. But they are quite different as well. In the first story, Elijah has been living with the widow and her son. You remember? He was fleeing from people who wanted him dead, and when he was resting in this town, he asked the widow to make a little cake for him. She said that she only had enough flour and oil to make a little food for her and her son and then they would die. Elijah promised that the jar of oil would not be empy and the bin of flour would remain full until the famine was over. This story we hear occurs later; the boy stops breathing, the woman blames her sins and Elijah, and Elijah takes the boy to his room and prays that he be restored to life. Even the widow did not see the miracle. And clearly this miracle has to do with rewarding the widow for her charity towards Elijah, and assuring her that her sin is not behind her loss.

But the second story is so different. We have two processions; we have a procession of death, a procession going to the grave. The custom in those days was that the family of the dead person would lead the procession, and in this case, that's the widowbringing her son, followed by the townspeople, to the graveyard, where she will bury all her hopes and dreams as well. The other procession is the one of life. Jesus has been working miracles of healing throughout the area, and has collected quite a following. It seems as though he is using his power to overcome all those limitations, blindness, deafness, being lame, being posessed by demons – that keep people from living life to the fullest. And so the procession of death meets the procession of life.

Jesus cannot allow death to pass, and he takes pity on the widow. Unlike the case of Elijah, Jesus does not know the widow personally. Unlike Elijah begging God for a miracle hidden away in his room, Jesus simply tells the young man to get up. And unlike Elijah's miracle, worked before no eyes other than his, the entire crowd, the procession of life and the procession of death, witness the miracle.

The young man went on, we presume, to grow up, to marry, to raise his own family, and finally to die again, perhaps with many people mourning him. The widow has been spared, but not all those future mourners. Death is inevitable, for Lazarus, for the young girl who was the daughter of the synagogue official, for this person, and for Jesus himself. Only Jesus returns to live forever. So why did Jesus choose to perform this miracle at this time?

The gospel says he had pity on the widow, and I'm sure he did. But what about all the other widows, what about his own mother, who was probably a widow? Why didn't her raise Saint Joseph? Did Jesus raise the son for his own sake? Probably there was something to that. This is a young man, maybe a teenager. He has not lived his life to the full. He was so full of potential, and maybe Jesus sees that and gives him a second chance. But again, why him, and not others?

I think the main reason Jesus worked this miracle when he did and where he did was to show us all that Life overcomes death. This is what we see acted out here, but this is what we know by faith and by Jesus' own resurrection.

I take two things away from this second story. I know many people who seem to have not done what God has meant for them to do. Sometimes it's because they haven't lived long enough, and one would hope that time will help. But there are many people as we all know who because of poverty, drugs, alcohol – or maybe just being born in the wrong part of the world, who will never achieve what God wants for them. And there are many others who, let's face it, have given themselves over to a life of self-indulgence, of greed, of pursuit of wealth or power or pleasure, and have turned their backs on God. And they are not achieving what the father wants for them.

Jesus made it possible for the young man to achieve his potential, and since we are his disciples, and we are called to carry out his work in the world, that should be on our agenda as well. How can we help each other to live full lives, to live as God wants us to live? We can't raise the dead, but we can do something about the living. In a sense, that's the purpose of a parish – a community of people who seek to form the Body of Christ, to help each of us to do our part in this body.

The second thing I take away is how rare it is that through a miracle a person is raised from the dead. Besides the Resurrection of Jesus, a very different event than these resuscitations, There are a total of five instances in the New Testament – three by Jesus, one by Peter, and one by Paul when someone was raised from the dead. In the Old Testament I could only find two instances, one by Elijah and another by his disciple, Elisha. That's it. That seems to tell us that when we die, it is God's will that it be at that time and place. That is somewhat reassuring, I guess. Someone once speculated that we die at a time when God sees that our chances of salvation are as high as they can get; and that makes sense if you believe in a merciful God. He calls us when he sees that we have achieved what He wants us to achieve, or perhaps when he sees that nothing further can be expected.

This week we lost Father Vern DeCoteau, one of my instructors in the diaconate program, and a wonderful inspiring priest. He is mourned, he will be missed, but would anyone want Jesus to come along and raise him from the dead? If we believe what our faith tells us, he has reached the goal of his life, and we can only hope that we will have a blessed death as well.

Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ

Luke 9:11-17

When I was in grade school, I always wondered why my two grandmothers went to Communion so infrequently. My German grandmother was very prayerful, and would get to Mass whenever she could; she would say the rosary every day and had other devotions. My Scotch-Irish grandmother was I guess, spiritual but not religious, as they say today. She was married to a man who was raised a Mormon, but didn't practice any religion. She would come to Mass on Sunday and sit in the back of the church and say a rosary while the priest said the Mass in Latin. I think I saw her receive communion two or three times a year, usually on Easter and Christmas.

When you get into the history of the practice of the reception of the Eucharist, it's interesting. In the early days of the Church, all of those who participated in the liturgy would receive. Fragments of the consecrated bread would be brought to those too sick to come. It was truly considered Spiritual food. Later, the church began to insist that a person who was a sinner could not partake of the Eucharist. Initially sins like apostasy and adultery and murder were what characterized a sinner. However, as time went on and as the sacrament of penance evolved, long lists of sins and appropriate penances were made to help priests. More and more “mortal” sins appeared. Missing the Sunday liturgy; insulting a priest; making a bad confession by not disclosing all your sins, even the minor ones; being distracted during mass – Along with this evolution of the understanding of sin came the Jansenist movement which held that only a few souls would make it to heaven, an idea that actually had a lot to do with the origins of Protestantism.

My grandmothers were influenced by this history. To them, receiving Holy Communion was a special privilege requiring a lot of preparation. It was, after all, during their young adulthood that Pius X urged the frequent reception of Communion and making it available to children once they reached the age of reason. But the damage had been done to my grandmothers.

The reaction to the idea that only those without sin could receive was the rise of the veneration of the Eucharist just as we do in Benediction and in Holy Hours before the Blessed Sacrament.

The Feast of Corpus Christi, that is, the Body of Christ, was the product of the veneration of the Eucharist in this context. It was a special time to recall that Jesus was keeping his promise to us that he would be with us always, to the end of the world. It was a re-affirmation of the truth that the Bread and Wine become the Real Sacramental presence of Jesus. And in the days of infrequent communion it served as a substitute, perhaps; people would sit in the presence of the Eucharist and pray to the Lord. My grandmothers had no doubt at all in their minds that Jesus was physically present.

Today we are almost back to those days of the early church. Very few people would avoid receiving the Eucharist because they feel too sinful. We don't have the sense any more. And it seems as though very few of us sense the real presence either. Holy Communion is casual. People receive and then walk out the door before Mass is even over. And polls of American Catholics suggest that almost half of those who go to Mass think the Eucharist is just a symbol.

If the Eucharist is what the Church says it is, we have to get back to the right sort of balance. We need to show by our physical behavior as well as our mental prayer that we truly believe Jesus is present in the Blessed Sacrament. Sometimes that means we have to deliberately place ourselves in His presence even when Mass is not going on. Jesus waits to hear us and speak with us and while it's true that we could do this in our own homes, there is something special about coming into his physical presence. All of us who have families know that there is something special when we get together with a loved one; email, text messages and skyping don't really fill the gap. This is exactly why the Roman Catholic Church has venerated the Eucharist for so long. How can we really cultivate a personal relationship with Our Lord long distance, as it were?

But the other side of the coin is necessary as well. We are urged to receive the Eucharist as often as possible – but as Saint Paul tells us, we are to receive it worthily. What does that mean? Well, we should be in what we used to call a “state of grace”. That means that we are conscious of our sins and review our spiritual progress with our confessor every now and then. But it also means that we approach the Eucharist recalling what is happening – we are being fed the Body and Blood of Jesus. It means that our whole being comes to the Eucharistic table with reverence, not just our minds. We indicate by our postures and gestures that we are approaching God himself, in the person of Jesus. We prepare for communion by at least a few moments of reflection. And after receiving we spend at least a few minutes focusing entirely on the Lord who is now within us.

We Roman Catholics are so fortunate. Unlike other Eucharistic churches, we usually can receive communion every day. And in those other Churches the Lord is physically present only during the Sunday liturgy; there is no practice of reserving the eucharist, or having the opportunity for silent adoration.

So on this feast of Corpus Christi let us resolve to increase our devotion.

Trinity Sunday, cycle C, 2016

John 16:12-15

During the 11^th century some bishops proposed to Pope Alexander that a special feast be set aside to honor the Blessed Trinity. Pope Alexander replied that he was against this idea because it would mean that priests and bishops would try to explain the Trinity, and that would always lead to heresy. About one hundred years later Pope John the twenty-second did proclaim the feast we celebrate today. Pope Alexander's worries came true. If you have a little time and a computer, go to You Tube and enter “Saint Patrick's bad analogies”. It's very clever; Saint Patrick meets two Irish peasants and tries to explain the Trinity; with each attempt, they point out that he's just made another heretical statement. It's a good introduction to the problems we face.

There is the heresy of partialism like comparing the Trinity to a shamrock. There's the heresy of modalism, if you compare the Trinity to how a woman can be a wife, a mother, and a daughter all at the same time. There's the heresy of Tritheism, if you say that the Father creates, the Son redeems, and the Holy Spirit sanctifies. And don't forget Adoptionism, when you see the Father as in some way superior to the Son or the Spirit.

And one of the greatest theologians, Saint Gregory Nanzanzien, explained the Trinity in this way: “No sooner do I conceive of the One than I am illumined by the splendour of the Three; no sooner do I distinguish Three than I am carried back into the One. When I think of any of the Three, I think of him as the whole, and my eyes are filled, and the greater part of what I am thinking escapes me. I cannot grasp the greatness of that One so as to attribute a greater greatness to the rest. When I contemplate the Three together, I see but one torch, and cannot divide or measure out the undivided light."

But if you think I am going to explain the Trinity to you today, you are mistaken. All I can do is tell you what it is not. There are long books from the time of the early Church fathers to now which delve into the Trinity, but bring us no closer to understanding it. Saint Augustine was thinking about the Trinity when he met a child who told him that his mind could never understand what he was trying to grasp.

Who do you think knows the most about the Trinity? Thomas Aquinas? Pope John Paul II? I think it must have been Mary. No other human being has had such an intimate relationship with God.

In Mary the Trinity is evident, experienced, remembered, and desired. Every story we have about her shows this, and the only one who could be the source of those stories is Mary.

The Father tells her that she is to be the Mother of the Savior and she joyfully consents. The Spirit overshadows her and the child Jesus I conceived in her womb. She is called “Highly favored daughter” by the angel who speaks for the Father; she is espoused by the Holy Spirit who brings about her pregnancy; and she is mother to the Son who takes on flesh in her womb.

At the birth of Jesus, the Son, the Glory of the Father is revealed to the shepherds, and the Holy Spirit guides the Magi to him.

When Jesus becomes separated from them at the age of twelve, they find him in the House of the Father, the great temple in Jerusalem, where the learned rabbis are aware of the Spirit within him – how else could he have such wisdom?

At Cana a young couple enter into a solemn contract in the presence of God, and Mary persuades Jesus to bring about the miracle changing water into wine, through the Spirit.

We find one other story where Mary and her relatives worry that Jesus might have gone off the rails, and they come to bring him home. But Jesus through the Spirit claims all those who listen to him as family, just as the Father has claimed him as Beloved Son.

And Mary is never a proud mother in all of these events; at the Annunciation she is skeptical: “ How can this be, for I have not known a man?”. At the birth of Jesus she is exhausted from labor and frightened from being so far from home. When Jesus is found in the temple she is frantic and like any mother, ready to scold her son: “How could you do this to your father and I?”. At Cana she is insistent and nagging: “Do whatever he tells you”, she tells the waiters, knowing that this will put pressure on her son. And when she and her relatives try to bring Jesus home, she feels rejection, as Jesus insists that his family are those who hear his words and do the will of the father, not just those who have a biologic connection.

The stories of Mary told to Matthew and Luke and John bring into focus the interaction of the Trinity which first entered into her life, with world-changing consequences, and now enters into every Christian. She was the first into whom the Spirit entered, at the command of the Father, to bring forth the God-man Jesus. And that is the pattern all through the history of Christianity: The Father asks you and I to conceive Christ in ourselves, and with our consent, the Holy Spirit brings this miracle about.

The late Peter Gomes who was the chaplain of Harvard said this: “we aren’t here to own anything, but to receive everything; not to finish anything, but to participate in something. And if it seems unfair not to see the fruits of our labor, it is likewise an undeserved privilege that we get to labor at all.” This is Mary. History suggests that she joined the community of Saint John, somewhere in Turkey. By the time of her death, what did she really know? She knew that there were people who followed her son; she probably knew that this little group didn't know where they were going or what to expect. All she knew is that she had been a part of something which she did not understand. And she thanked God for what he had done for her. And maybe, because she was human, she might have asked whether he could have accomplished his purposes with less violence and pain and suffering for the Son she brought into the world. But in the end Mary trusted the great power, the great love, that had entered her life; trusted without understanding, just as you and I must do.

Pentecost, 2016

John 20:19-23

Listen to Saint Basil the Great: “From the Spirit comes foreknowledge of the future, understanding of the mysteries of the faith, insight into the hidden meaning of Scripture, and other special gifts. Through the Spirit we become citizens of heaven, we enter into eternal happiness, and abide in God. Through the Spirit we acquire a likeness to God, indeed, we attain what is beyond our most sublime aspirations – we become God.”

Jesus promised this Spirit to His Church and his people; the early Christians relied on the Spirit to guide them. We are told by Saint Paul that the Spirit gives each of us a gift for the building up of the Church. Every time we receive a Sacrament we partake of Jesus' spirit, especially in Baptism and Confirmation. It would seem that the Spirit would be obvious to each of us. And yet, when we think about the Spirit, sometimes we have in our minds the image of people speaking in tongues – Holy Rollers, perhaps – and being Catholics, we tend to resist that kind of spirituality. And so with all those wondrous promises about the Spirit, we kind of blunder through life not even aware that the Spirit is constantly giving Himself to us.

I don't think you have to be a mystic or a monk to experience the Spirit. You and I, are, after all, beings who experience everything through our senses. We have the five physical senses and the four mental senses – the ability to know, memory, emotion and imagination. Even if we have mystical experiences, they need to be translated into sensory information if we are to experience them at all. And that's where I think we become confused. Have you ever had an impulse to do something, something unusual, outside of your normal pattern, which if done might have resulted in something good? That's one way the Spirit works. Have you ever had a moment when someone popped into your mind, someone you hadn't thought about in years? That's another way the Spirit works. Have you ever had a moment when you felt like you were part of something much bigger than yourself? Maybe on top of a mountain, or sitting beside a seashore, or holding a newborn infant? That's the Spirit; one of his gifts is joy, and Jesus wants our joy to be complete. Jesus told us that the Spirit would teach us everything and remind us of all that He taught his apostles. Sometimes when you are in prayer or reading scripture, an insight will come, or a prompting. That's the Holy Spirit. He doesn't reveal our whole future to us, but he is always working in the present moment.

Now, you say, doesn't modern psychology tell us about the unconscious? Don't certain sensory stimuli trigger the recall of memories that were buried deep in our brains? We all know that we do things and fail to do things for reasons which aren't always clear to us. And just as we have impulses to do good things, we also have them to do evil things. And sometimes it's hard to tell the difference. Is the Spirit whispering in one ear and the devil in the other? Not really. Jesus told us that his followers would have power over Satan, and he could not harm us where it really counts. I think we get an inkling of what's going on when we read the story of Adam and Eve. We blame the serpent for the sin of our first parents, but all he did was suggest to Eve that in forbidding them to eat of a particular fruit, God was keeping them from becoming like Him. When Eve looked at the fruit, it says that she saw that it really looked delicious; she listened to her own voice rather than God's.

There are no coincidences for a Christian. And Jesus gives us the Spirit so that we can tell good from evil. And the Spirit is always interacting with us – always. Our task is to recognize the Spirit and become more sensitive to His presence.

Pick up any Life of a Saint and you will see where that sensitivity gets you. There are many examples, but Mother Angelica comes to mind. At a very early age she began listening to the Spirit, and more important, acting on what she believed the Spirit was telling her to do. With great confidence, she would step out; and if she was on the wrong track it would become apparent quickly, Because the Spirit protects us from error. Likewise, if she was on the right track, the Spirit would confirm that. And as time went on she learned to tell the difference between the voice of the Spirit and her own wishful thinking. The biggest problem we have is that most of the time we don't act on the impulses given to us by the Spirit, so we don't learn to tell the difference between His voice and the voices of others or of ourselves. But it's within your reach and mine to be on intimate terms with this third person of the Blessed Trinity.

When I was young a common belief was that we human beings only used about five percent of our brains. It turns out that that isn't really true; But I think we could say something like that about many Christians; we have this wonderful gift from God, the Holy Spirit, who is a person, who interacts with us, whose mission is to make us saints, who wants to give us joy, who has given each of us gifts to give each other.

So on this Feast of Pentecost, think about these things. Jesus promised to give you and I the Spirit He told us what the Spirit could do in us and through us and for us. The early Christians and the Saints all showed us that the Spirit is active in the lives of his people – even up to today. And there isn't any reason you and I can't have what Jesus promised. So pray that the Spirit help you hear Him better; and then do what the great Saints did, what the First Christians did, and look for the Spirit in your daily lives, and when you think you hear Him, act on what He is telling you; and count on the promise that he will show you if you are wrong and confirm your action if you are right. And always remember that when you experience joy, the Spirit is there.

Seventh Sunday of Easter, cycle C

John 17:20-26

As you undoubtedly know, we are going to probably have to choose between Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton for our next president. Nine months ago, every respectable political commentator predicted that Trump wouldn't last all that long and the Republicans would nominate Jeb Bush or maybe Marco Rubio. Nine months ago they said Hilary would win the Democratic primary in a walk, and Bernie Sanders was just a flash in the pan. It's rare when there is so much agreement about something that was totally wrong.

The columnist David Brooks wrote last week that he thought he was wrong because over the years he had increasingly associated with people like him – affluent, educated, and moderately liberal. He began to think that what was only a small part of the country resembled the whole. He thought he and others like him had to get outside their ghettos and re-discover the rest of the country if they were going to be able to make any sense out of politics.

When Jesus prays for unity in the gospel today, we usually think to ourselves that he is talking about all the divisions in Christianity, a scandal to many. But while I feel good when someone from another denomination becomes a Catholic, I am not ecstatic; I have met so many people who are members of other denominations who are better Christians than I am. I can't help but admire other Christian bodies who continue to give rise to saintly people. And while there were violent conflicts between different groups of Christians down through the ages, right from the beginning, I think that the degree of strife between Christian denominations is probably at its lowest point, and the amount of ecumenical cooperation has hit an all time high. In ways that truly matter, Christianity today is more united than in the past. And of course it would be odd if Jesus, who was talking to twelve Jewish guys who had no concept of the fact that they were going to form a new religion, was referring to divisions that were still about a thousand to fifteen hundred years off.

But maybe Jesus is talking about a different kind of unity. Most of us are like David Brooks. We have a comfort zone. Many years ago my wife and I had a brief vacation in Jamaica. Most of the people there are descended from African slaves. We stayed in a place where we were the only caucasians. We ate in the dining area with our fellow guests. I didn't feel uncomfortable. But one day we stopped in at a beachfront hotel – a Hilton, I think. We went through a gate into the garden-like courtyard. We stepped into the lobby of the hotel – and saw that everyone, from the guests to the bellhops, was caucasian. It was only when it fell away that I noticed I had been vaguely uncomfortable before. I tell this story simply to illustrate that all of us have a comfort zone, and we are biologically programmed, I think, to stay in that zone. It takes a lot of effort to leave.

And yet that is what Jesus demonstrated in his own life. He left the little town he grew up in, for starters. In those days where most people never ventured more than a few miles from where they were born, Jesus wandered all over Palestine, confronting people in the big city, people in Samaria, people who worshiped the gods of Rome. Jesus conversed with lepers and beggars and people with chronic illnesses. And the early Christians tried, with varying degrees of success, to imitate him. The Jerusalem community had some difficulty integrating the Greek-speaking Jews with those who spoke Hebrew, but they did. Later, some adjustments had to be made so that the Gentiles would not be made to feel like second class citizens by not following Jewish laws. And later we hear Paul say, “In Christ Jesus there is no male nor female, Jew nor Greek, slave or freeman.” The rapid growth of the Church was due in part to the fact that anyone and everyone was treated like a member of the family.

There were several moments in Christian history when the growth of the Church was explosive. When I was young we were at the tail end of one of those periods. I went to the Catholic University of America and my classes were filled with young men and women who were members of religious orders. We were all thrilled to hear about famous movie actors and sports figures who converted to Catholicism. Missionaries were going all over the world – the Maryknolls were an order that grew right in our own soil, and had missions all over the world, the seed which they planted is still bearing fruit. But now the order is just a shadow of what it once was.

It seems as though whenever the Church grows, it's because people are willing to leave their comfort zone, willing to leave people like themselves and become part of other societies, other social groups. And when the church falters and stops growing, it's because we fall back into those little ghettos where everyone looks like myself. If you go around many of our communities in Western Massachusetts, you find churches which are no longer in use – the Irish church, the polish church, the Italian church – all built by people who couldn't stand the thought of leaving their comfort zone. And now no one uses those churches.

Do you and I listen to the prayer of Jesus, that all may be one? Do you and I know the names of anyone who sleeps under the memorial bridge at night? Or some of the Somali refugees who have moved into our towns? Or even our fellow Catholics from Puerto Rico or Viet Nam? Or are we content to let our communities never come into contact with each other because to do otherwise makes us feel uncomfortable.

I think this is the unity Jesus wants for all of us – that we recognize that we are all children of the same father, brothers and sisters of the same Jesus, temples of the same Holy Spirit. And if we live with that in mind, if to us it doesn't make a difference whether you are Jew or Greek, Male or Female, Slave or free, then people will once again say, “See how those Christians love one another!” and want we have, and want to become one with us.

Sixth Sunday of Easter, Cycle C

John 14:23-29

I visited an elderly lady many times. She had lung problems and heart problems and was on oxygen all the time. I would walk into her room and be greeted with a smile. She kept busy; she read a lot, she did crossword puzzles, she spoke on the phone with her children who lived in other cities and states. But she wanted nothing. She had her rosary handy and there was a crucifix on the wall and she had received the sacraments of the sick and the apostolic blessing. She was at peace. And one day she died in her sleep and had a big smile on her face, they tell me. She was at peace. As a cancer doctor I've been there when many patients of mine died. There weren't many who were at peace. And yet all of us will have to face death someday, and I think we would like to be at peace.

One of the characteristics of a Christian is peace. That's really clear when you read the accounts of the martyrs during the early years of the Church. They would sometimes sing hymns as they were thrown to the lions. But it wasn't just the martyrs. If you study the lives of the saints, you find that it is a characteristic of every saint. And don't think about those pictures of saints who look like starvation victims as they stare mournfully into the heavens. Saint Louis de Montfort used to go into a town square and start preaching. He always attracted a crowd, partly because if he saw people who weren't paying attention, he would stop preaching and being a big strong man, would drag them over to the crowd. Saint Philip Neri loved to play practical jokes, and Saint Charles Borromeo, the Cardinal of Milan, who didn't have much of a sense of humor, wrote several letters to Neri asking him to tone down his antics. And there are many wonderful stories showing how human the saints are. But the bottom line is that at the very center of every saint is peace.

Jesus promises his followers peace. He calls it “his” peace and contrasts it to the peace the world gives. Jesus must have been aware of the boast of the Roman empire – that throughout the empire there was peace. The so called “Pax Romana” or “Peace of Rome”. And it was true. Any time anyone threatened the peace the Roman army would move in and the roads would be decorated with people hanging from crosses. We've had that kind of peace in our time as well – the old Soviet Union, China, North Korea – and unfortunately we seem to be headed in that direction in our country as well. There is less and less rational discourse when people disagree. If you think people should use the bathroom that goes with their physical gender, well, you are obviously bigoted and don't deserve a concert by Bruce Springsteen or a movie by Michael Moore. If you don't think your tax dollars should pay for abortion, well, you are obviously anti-woman and practically a member of the Ku Klux Klan. And if you think people should prove they are who they say they are when it comes time to vote, well, then you are a racist. If you want to bring about the world's peace – find a way to shut people up who disagree with you.

Jesus peace, which he himself possessed, is an entirely different animal. His is an interior peace which comes about because of his union with the Father. And notice in this gospel passage how he promises that peace to us.

First, if we love Him and keep his word, then the Father and Jesus will make their dwelling with us. If we truly realize this, it's hard to be anxious. If God makes his dwelling with us, there isn't anything that can cause lasting harm. Saint Peter Chanel, who was martyred after spending years establishing Christianity in the Pacific Islands, said before his death: “It does not matter if I die. Christ's religion is so deeply rooted in these islands that it cannot be destroyed by my death.” When Jesus and the Father dwell with us, living and dying, suffering and enjoying life – it's all the same because nothing can defeat the one who makes his home with us.

Second, Jesus promises to send the Holy Spirit to remind us of his teachings and teach us everything. This is a promise to each Christian as well as to the Church as a whole. We have to learn to listen to the Holy Spirit, who tells us what God wants of us in every circumstance. He doesn't tell us how things will turn out or where we stand in the grand scheme of things, but he does let us know through our consciences and through the teachings of the scriptures and the Church what we are to do right now with this moment we have been given. People like Padre Pio and Mother Angelica demonstrate in their lives the skill of listening to the Holy Spirit – but we can all develop this skill.

Third, Jesus promises that, although he is going away, he is coming back for us. One elderly person I visit told me that this is the promise that she loves most – the assurance that Jesus will come for his disciples. There are even times when a person who is dying seems to testify to this. Saint Anthony of Padua's last words were “I see my Lord Jesus!”

There are a lot of people who listen to the words of Jesus and don't believe them. There are in fact a lot of us Christians who can't accept what Jesus is saying. We try to live good lives, we go to Mass, we pray; but we don't trust, we don't take what Jesus is telling us at face value. We can't have the peace Jesus promises unless we do.

So it is very simple: Love Jesus, carry out his commandments;, and the Father and Son will live with you. Listen to the Holy Spirit – and if you don't know what that is all about, find someone to show you. It's not rocket science, the Holy Spirit, I'm convinced, speaks to each one of us. Do I always follow the Spirit? No. But I think I'm getting more in tune, and I've had a whole lifetime to learn this. And lastly, rest assured that He will come back for us.

The peace that Jesus wants to give us, the peace that he himself had while on earth, is within our reach. All we need to do is grasp it.

Fifth Sunday in Easter, Cycle C

John 13:33-35

“Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and God will glorif y him at once.” Whenever I read that passage, my first reaction is to say, “Huh?” I hear the words, but I don't really understand them. Yes, I know who the Son of Man is, and I even know to what Jesus is referring – his crucifixion and death. If he had just said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified” I wouldn't have a problem. Well, I guess I'd still have a little problem. You see, I'm not sure what “glorified” means. But I don't think I'm alone. Go look up the word “glory”, or even “glorify” and you will see what I mean. Or just think of how we use those words. “That movie glorifies violence”. Glory be to God! A woman's hair is her glory. When we won the game, we got the glory! I restored my car to its former glory!

I think the word “glory” refers to something that defines a person or thing, and to glorify means to show that. Obviously it means more, but let's start there. The Crucifixion and death of Jesus shows something about his very nature – tied in to his self-sacrificing love for us. And in that moment we get a glimpse of God Himself, because if we have seen Jesus, we have seen the Father. But in response to Jesus' submission to the will of the Father, God will glorify him – raise him up to new life, and that will show God's power and love; and he will do it now, not at the end of time. So I think I can wrap my mind around the idea that to glorify in this context means to show something about God's power.

But then we read the next part of the gospel selection: “I give you a new commandment; Love one another.” Well, that part isn't new. The words may vary a bit, but all through the old testament you have that command. And it isn't even unique to Christianity or Judaism. But the part that is new follows: “As I have loved you, so you should love one another.” How does Jesus love his disciples? Enough to die for them. That is what Jesus sets for uis as a goal.

And finally, Jesus says, “This is how all will know you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” And that ties the first part to the second part.

When Jesus dies on the cross, we learn something of what God is like. God loves us enough to die for us. When Jesus is raised from the dead, we learn something more. God overcomes death for those who submit to His will. God will never be outdone in generosity, and he will not let his faithful ones remain in the grave. In those actions, God is shown forth, God is manifested, God is glorified.

And to the extend we love each other as Jesus loved us, God is shown forth, he is manifested, he is glorified.

And Jesus doesn't just want us to love one another, even to love each other enough to die for each other; he wants us to love each other so that the world will see God in the behavior of the followers of Jesus.

If you think about Islam – and I'm not changing the subject, really – I imagine to many of us the image of a masked terrorist chopping the head off of someone comes to mind. The muslims who interpret their religion in this way are manifesting something about their founder and their idea of God. But the muslims I know are not that different from me in their daily behavior; they work, they pray, they raise families, they want peace. But they aren't manifesting something about the founder of their religion or their idea of God by being ordinary citizens.

And we're not any different. Back when Christianity was spreading throughout the world, there were Christians who carried out Jesus' wishes; they were members of religious orders who were missionaries, founded hospitals and universities; cared for the poor, sacrificing themselves to advance the cause of Christ. And there were many of them. But there were many claiming to be Christians who came in armies that conquered and enslaved people. Depending on who got to you first, you might be very attracted to Christianity or perhaps it would leave a bad taste in your mouth and you would want nothing to do with it. Much of our modern world still bears the marks of these two forces.

Today we don't have very many people who publically dedicate their lives to showing the world how we are to love one another. We are all aware of the great decline in vocations to religious orders, and even those who are members are no longer easily distinguishable from every one else. And unfortunately, even our priests who go around in clerical collars don't always make those who see them think of love as Christ is speaking about. And maybe that's a good thing, because we can't leave loving one another up to specialists. If we want the world to know that we are Christ's disciples, then we have to show that we love each other as Christ loved us.

We will never convert the world by living normal quiet lives. We will never convert the world by embracing the values that the world treasures. The only way we will show Jesus in the world, the only way we will glorify God, is when we demonstrate that we have self-sacrificing love for each other.

Jesus lived and died to reveal something about how God is to the world. God raised Jesus from the dead to show the world something more about how God is. And Jesus calls us to continue to reveal him and His father to the world – by showing that same kind of love to the world, a love that is active, that gets results, that is self sacrificing, and shown through action, not just words. Only then will we begin to convert the world.