THE FANTASTIC GIFT JESUS LEAVES WITH US

EASTER 6 PREPARES US TO APPRECIATE THE HOLY SPIRIT OF GOD.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

The Lord be with you. A reading from the Holy Gospel according to John. Jesus said to his disciples, If you love me, you will keep my commandments, and I will ask the Father, and He will give you another advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot accept, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him because he remains with you and will remain in you. I will not leave you orphans. I will come to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me because I live and you will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the person who loves me. Whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love you and reveal myself to you. The gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Not essential, but a few little notes about the scriptures tonight. In the first reading, the word was being carried on. Philip was bringing it to another area. And it opens up with this section, Acts eight. Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed Christ to them. Little technical glitch, but not really. See, Jerusalem was the center of the faith of the Jewish people. So although Jerusalem may have been north or south, you always went up to Jerusalem. Here they went down from the city of Samaria because it was above them, but it was the key place. Everyone goes to Jerusalem. Everything starts there. It's a very minor but very relevant theological and geographic fact. That Jerusalem, the place of the temple, Mount Zion, that we sing about all year long in all the Psalms, is very important. There's more. When Jesus teaches this great mystery tonight, and it's outstanding what he's saying. It's located in very mild words, but it's outstanding. He said, If you love me, you'll keep my commandments. And I will be in you, my father will be in you, and you'll be in me. All together. That is the heart of the promise that Jesus gives us today in the scriptures. In Peter's letter, he's encouraging us to always do good, always proclaim our faith, and if somebody gets on your nerves because you're doing what is good, too bad. That's the way it's supposed to be. Because your mission, our mission as Christians, is to always do good and reflect Jesus in our world and in our lives. And if someone does not accept Jesus, we pray for them, we don't destroy them, but we put them in their place. And if they're blaming us for doing something Catholic because we're Catholics, we praise the Lord. We're proud of it. I think there'll be an announcement about St. Anthony's Feast here at the parish next month. And I know from last year and the year before, the procession of the St. Anthony statue and community up and down the streets is something outstanding and beautiful. We're meant to do that. We're meant to bring our fate to the streets. And if there might be people who don't understand, good question. We can answer them. Anyone would. Any one of us could answer what we're doing. We're celebrating this poor saint, the saint of the poor, and blessing his bread and giving it to people. And we're doing that as Catholics because we believe. The scriptures tell us don't give me this half-belief and half in, half out. We should live as if we are believers in Jesus Christ. He confirms that in the scriptures today, in the Gospel of John, when he promises us this outstanding gift, the gift he promises us is his spirit. And as he's saying this, he's saying, I am in the Father, and the Father is in me, so we are promising our spirit to you. That's not just religious hogwash. That is such a central feature of our faith that Jesus Christ gave us his own spirit. And in a few weeks on Pentecost, we celebrate that historically. And this piece from the gospel comes from the night of the Last Supper. But he's promising us something that is outstanding. You and I have God's Spirit within us. You and I share the Holy Spirit of God. If you don't pray to the Holy Spirit, you're not going to know you have the Holy Spirit. Reminder, we've got to speak to the Holy Spirit. We're Catholics, we come to church, we stick our fingers in the holy water, and we make the benediction. That's something to be said to the world. That when we come into this space, we are accessing the power of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. When we listen to the gospel and remember Jesus' words and his outstanding gift to us, we have to realize this is not just an inane promise, something you say because you're going to church. This is God's own Son telling us Jesus, he is sending us and giving us his own spirit. Now, put it in our language. Say you love someone, really love someone. New love, old love, doesn't matter. You really love someone, and he or she is not necessarily with you, but you know you love him or her, and you you feel that wherever he is, wherever she is. Like now we see a lot of kids going off to college and so on, and their parents' love will go with them. But all of us, we have someone who loves us or did love us, and their spirit is with us. And we can think about that person cognitively. God gave us his own spirit to us individually and as a church to always speak to him, talk to him. Not text, not phone, not email. Stop and talk to him. Sometimes out loud, sometimes in the quiet of our hearts. This is what Jesus is promising us tonight. That God's own spirit is with every one of us. And what are we supposed to do with that spirit? Well, he calls them the spirit of truth. So right off the bat, it's God's Holy Spirit of truth. Now we go to the scriptures and we put flesh on the letters that we just read. We put power behind them. So when Philip goes down to Samaria to proclaim Christ, that's a model of what we're to do as Christians. We celebrated a few weeks ago, this is the sixth Sunday of Easter, that happened thousand, two thousand years ago. But the reality is the resurrection of Jesus Christ is now, is with us. Jesus is with us right now in this church. And his Holy Spirit goes with us wherever we go. If we're going out to eat later on, if we're going to home, if we're going to go visit, the Holy Spirit of Jesus is with us. And the Holy Spirit of Jesus is the Holy Spirit of God the Father as well. Jesus made that very clear. I'm in you, the Father's in you, the Spirit is in you, and I am in the Father. It's a little complex, but this is God speaking God's language to us, or human, who need it. So to carry on the missionary work of John and Peter didn't stop with the apostles, it goes on with us. Where you and I go, the Holy Spirit goes. And when you and I talk, and when you and I pray, and when you and I get into discussion with our family and friends, the Holy Spirit is with us. And if we're talking to a baptized Christian, the Holy Spirit remains with that person as well. So what does that mean? Respect, at least love constantly. Proclamation of the faith? Always. Because we're not just talking, we're revealing what's in us. God's power, God's Jesus used the word advocate. An advocate, just think about it from the Latin, is someone that walks alongside you. An advocate, and the Italians have it avocado, an attorney, someone who speaks for you. So God's own attorney, the advocate of God the Father, is with you always, with us. I mean, be clear, I'm speaking to all of us, not just you. The advocate of God the Father is with us always, giving us the grace when we're weak, giving us the strength when we're lost, to speak on behalf of God, to speak and live on behalf of God. So our actions, just like the actions of the apostles, reflect God. So our attitude, just like the attitude of Jesus Himself at the Last Supper, reflects God and his love for his disciples. This is Jesus' great big powerful gift to us. Think about it. Each one of us has God's Holy Spirit within us. Our thoughts, our psychology, our minds, our behaviors. As we leave here, the Holy Spirit goes with us. And we have such promise and such hope. But the scriptures already address that. If you get in conflict because of your faith in Jesus Christ, praise God. Don't deny him, praise him. All the more reason you should give praise to God because you're doing what is right. The scriptures are our invitation to the great commandments of Jesus. And he really wants us to love one another. He really wants us to respect and love each other. And he says it's a two-way street. If we love him, his father will love us, and we will reveal our love in every one of you. Sixth Sunday of Easter, doesn't matter. We're celebrating the risen Lord today and every day.