Jesus said to his disciples: “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now. But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth. He will not speak on his own, but he will speak what he hears, and will declare to you the things that are coming. John 16:12-13
In this passage, Jesus indicates that the “Truth” can be overwhelming. He tells the disciples that they cannot bear it all just now. But the Holy Spirit will guide them to receive the Truth.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
Isn’t that a fact for all of us? Don’t we need to grow into the Truth rather than comprehend it all at once?
At best, we live in a world of appearances and, at worst, a world of fabrication. We may be tempted to judge reality based on these thin and misleading surfaces.
To respond to the deep truths of life, we need to prayerfully follow the Spirit – to be gradually strengthened in our capacity to see the world as God sees it, to respond to the world as God would respond. – in Truth.
Poetry: Witness – Denise Levertov
Sometimes the mountain is hidden from me in veils of cloud, sometimes I am hidden from the mountain in veils of inattention, apathy, fatique, when I forget or refuse to go down to the shore or a few yards up the road, on a clear day, to reconfirm that witnessing presence.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Paul is the headliner at the famed Areopagus in Athens.
The Areopagus is a prominent rock outcropping located northwest of the Acropolis in Athens, Greece. The name Areopagus also referred, in classical times, to the Athenian governing council, because they convened in this location. It was the ancient version of a stadium, but one provided by nature rather than human hands.
Paul’s address, from Acts today, has been perfectly crafted for his audience who are Gentile intellectuals and philosophers. We are familiar, up until now, with Paul’s speeches to Jews whom he wishes to convert. In those circumstances, he drew on the Hebrew scriptures with which they are familiar. But for the Athenians, Paul uses their art, poetry and philosophy to lead them to the topic of Jesus as the one true God.
And things go well for Paul in his long and finely detailed oration. The thoughtful Athenians are listening, that is until they hit a snag:
(Paul proclaimed) God demands that all people everywhere repent because he has established a day on which he will ‘judge the world with justice’ through a man he has appointed, and he has provided confirmation for all by raising him from the dead.”
When they heard about resurrection of the dead, some began to scoff, but others said, “We should like to hear you on this some other time.” And so Paul left them.
Acts 17:30-33
Jesus Christ, Risen from the dead is the touchstone of our Christian faith. It is the Sacred Reality that surpasses and changes every other reality we encounter.
Resurrection faith is not something we can study, analyze, or comprehand with simply the powers of our minds. That’s what the Athenians tried to do, but their analytical inclinations blocked them.
Resurrection faith is a Divine gift, given through the Spirit, to a heart opened in trust and readiness to God. It defies logic and philosophy because it is greater than they are. For one who has this kind of faith, explanations are not only unnecessary, they are restrictive and superfluous.
Jesus understood that to live with such faith is challenging. He suggests that the disciples cannot bear the weight of it without the indwelling companionship of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus said to his disciples: “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now. But when the Spirit comes, the Spirit of truth, you will be guided to all truth.
John 16:12-13
As people desiring to grow in faith, we can learn from the Athenians who walked away from the Grecian hillside. Is my capacity to believe limited by what my small human intellect can define? Or are my heart and mind given in trust to the infinite God Who loves me into the fullness of Truth.
Poetry: Tell All the Truth, but Tell It Slant – Emily Dickenson
Tell all the Truth but tell it slant – Success in Circuit lies Too bright for our infirm Delight The Truth’s superb surprise As Lightning to the Children eased With explanation kind The Truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind –
Music: The Faith – Leonard Cohen
The sea so deep and blind The sun, the wild regret The club, the wheel, the mind, O love, aren’t you tired yet? The club, the wheel, the mind O love, aren’t you tired yet?
The blood, the soil, the faith These words you can’t forget Your vow, your holy place O love, aren’t you tired yet? The blood, the soil, the faith O love, aren’t you tired yet?
A cross on every hill A star, a minaret So many graves to fill O love, aren’t you tired yet? So many graves to fill O love, aren’t you tired yet?
The sea so deep and blind Where still the sun must set And time itself unwind O love, aren’t you tired yet? And time itself unwind O love, aren’t you tired yet?
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we meet people who are deeply dedicated to their life commitments – sometimes for good, sometimes for woe.
In Acts, we meet the unnamed “jailer”. Paul and Silas have been manhandled and thrown into prison. Their jailer receives the instruction to “guard them securely” and he takes it very seriously, binding them in chains in the innermost dungeon.
This man revels in his job, to the degree that it is his only identification in the scriptures. We never know his real name.
His job gives him authority and power he would not have in his ordinary circumstances. Perhaps his job has even become his identity so that without it, he feels like little or nothing. When God decides to “earthquake” Paul and Silas out of their chains, the guard freaks. It’s more than an earthquake to him – his very identity is crumbling in the tumult.
And how about Paul? Is he cool in this reading, or what??? Paul’s power relies not on an assumed identity but on God’s centrality in his life.
When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, thinking that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted out in a loud voice, “Do no harm to yourself; we are all here.”
The jailer’s awed response is full-hearted! He does a transformational flip which transfers all his past “job dedication” into his new spiritual conversion. Not only does he allow the disciples to go free, he guides them to his own house, ministers to them, and is baptised. No doubt, his past employers were not too happy with him!
In our Gospel, the disciples, who are deeply dedicated to their vocations, still demonstrate a bit of job-jitters.
Jesus has made it clear that he’s on his way to another dimension and that his disciples will to have to carry on the evangelization business on their own. He promises them all kinds of supernatural help but they can’t imagine functioning without him.
Finally Jesus tells them that, in his physical absence, the Spirit will give them an enhanced power to promulgate the Gospel:
But I tell you the truth, it is better for you that I go. For if I do not go, the Advocate will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes he will convict the world in regard to sin and righteousness and condemnation
Both our readings today remind us that it’s all about what really makes us tick. Do we really understand that it is God’s life with us that gives us “importance”, security and identity? Do we tap into that Infinite Power to give us hope, confidence and transformational resilience in life’s many earthquakes? If so, we like the disciples, will be “unchainable” — because it isn’t about us. It is about the God we love whose Spirit lives in us.
Poetry: Peter and the Angel – Denise Levertov
(This poem is not about Paul and Silas, but rather about Peter when he too was freed from prison by Divine intervention (Acts 12:5-17))
Delivered out of raw continual pain, smell of darkness, groans of those others to whom he was chained—
unchained, and led past the sleepers, door after door silently opening— out! And along a long street's majestic emptiness under the moon:
one hand on the angel's shoulder, one feeling the air before him, eyes open but fixed . . .
And not till he saw the angel had left him, alone and free to resume the ecstatic, dangerous, wearisome roads of what he had still to do, not till then did he recognize this was no dream. More frightening than arrest, than being chained to his warders: he could hear his own footsteps suddenly. Had the angel's feet made any sound? He could not recall. No one had missed him, no one was in pursuit. He himself must be the key, now, to the next door, the next terrors of freedom and joy.
Music: Love is the Only Way – from the film Paul, Apostle of Christ by Jan Kaczmarek
An extra treat to bless your day: this beautiful and powerful rendition of “Unchained Melody’
The Musikschau der Nationen invites army orchestras from almost a dozen countries the U.S. Army website classifies as “Europe’s biggest brass band music festival.” Though not always consecutive, the festival enjoys over 35 years of time-honored traditions. Some participants besides the U.S. included Vietnam, Russia, and Mexico, among others. In 2002, they performed an all-orchestra version of “Unchained Melody”. The performance represented the largest millitary orchestra in the world.
Today , in God’s Lavish Mercy, we read in Acts about Baptism in the Spirit and the powers it bestows. When Paul encounters some believers who have received the Baptist’s rite of repentance, he asks if they had received the Holy Spirit.
Their simple answer kind of amuses me:
We’ve never even heard of him!
Paul remedies the situation with a few quick sacramental steps and:
… they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied.
When I read passages like this, I sometimes wonder what has happened in the millennia since those early Spirit-filled Baptisms… since the days when the Holy Spirit seems to have burst out all over in flames, wonders and eloquence.
Has the Holy Spirit changed? Diminished? Is Her battery running low? Or have we changed … the Church and we members who comprise it?
I guess we all know the answer, given our faith in a changeless God.
So why doesn’t the Holy Spirit blaze for us as She did for those twelve Ephesians in today’s reading?
I think it’s a matter of how we see, and listen.
Sir John Lubbock, a 19th century scientist and polymath wrote this: “What we see depends mainly on what we look for. … In the same field the farmer will notice the crop, the geologists the fossils, botanists the flowers, artists the colouring, sportmen the cover for the game. Though we may all look at the same things, it does not all follow that we should see them.”
John Lubbock, The Beauties of Nature and the Wonders of the World We Live In
Might not this wisdom apply as well to how we perceive the Spirit in our lives?
If in our daily experiences and interactions, we remain on a superficial, distracted relationship with what is sacred in all Creation, then we – like the fellows in our reading – may “never even hear” of the Holy Spirit.
But if, by prayer and contemplation, we open ourselves to what is holy in everything around us, then what we see and hear, what we feel and respond to begins to change — to catch fire.
During this week leading up to Pentecost, we might try this practice: let’s look more intensely for the Spirit in our daily lives by noticing the presence (or absence) of the Spirit’s gifts.
How are our choices, conversations, judgements, reactions reflective of these gifts?
In my experiences each day, what persons or circumstances have mirrored these gifts? What has overshadowed or eradicated them?
The Holy Spirit’s heart beats alive and well within all Creation. I might just need to dust off my stethoscope a bit to hear it! Maybe this beautiful poem will help.
God’s Grandeur- Gerard Manley Hopkins, SJ
The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod. And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; And though the last lights off the black West went Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs — Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
Meditation: God’s Grandeur- read so beautifully by Samuel West
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Jesus counsels the disciples as they grieve his impending departure. He assures them that they will be consoled and animated by the Holy Spirit whom he will send to them.
We all understand how the disciples feel. They love Jesus. They have been through hell and high water with him. They are comfortable with him. They have learned to be brave with him beside them.
All in all, they can’t imagine going on without him by their side.
Jesus, as he has so often had to tell them, says “You don’t quite get it!”. He explains that there will be no vacuum – that the Divine Presence will forever be with them in the form of the Holy Spirit. They are about to catch fire with the Love between Jesus and the Father! They should rejoice!
But, you know, it took these disciples three years of see-saw living with Jesus to fully embrace his Presence. It’s going to take more than a speech to kindle in them the full wonder of the Holy Spirit. It’s going to take a lifetime. It’s going to take thousands of little matches striking again and again in their hearts.
Decision by decision, action by action, they must now allow the Spirit to bring God’s Presence to life within them.
When Catherine McAuley, the first Sister of Mercy, died, her beloved sisters kneeling at her bedside felt a lot like the disciples in today’s Gospel. How would they carry on the works of mercy without Catherine beside them? But as those of us who never knew Catherine realize, she left a living Spirit burning within those sisters which has descended to all her followers for nearly 200 years.
Within Catherine, as within all faithful disciples of Jesus, the Holy Spirit inspires, generates, and sustains the Presence of God for the sanctification of all Creation. The Spirit pours out over the world in our works of mercy toward all who hunger for Life.
Like the early disciples, we may wish Jesus would come along and cook us a beach breakfast so we could just sit down and talk to him in the flesh. But Jesus tells us today, as he told his disciples:
But I tell you the truth, it is better for you that I go. For if I do not go, the Advocate will not come to you. But if I go, I will send the Spirit to you.
Let us ask for the kind of faith that can believe, see, and sit down with that Holy Spirit in our hearts, catching Her fire, lighting the world with Mercy.
Poetry: God’s Grandeur – Gerard Manley Hopkins
The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent; There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; And though the last lights off the black West went Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs-- Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
Music: Holy Spirit, Living Breath of God – The Gettys (with Gabriel’s Oboe from the movie “The Mission”)
Today, in Mercy, Acts recounts some of the challenges Paul and Barnabas met as they continued spreading the Gospel. With such a reading, we see the beginnings of theological arguments in the unfolding teaching of the Church.
One might wonder what turned yesterday’s Jewish and Gentile listeners into a stone-throwing mob. One wonders it today regarding some of the acrimonious factions within the Church.
It is one thing to receive the Gospel with one’s heart and spirit. It is another thing to receive it with one’s mind. As human beings, we resist mystery; we long for logic. We are more comfortable with a problem we can solve than with a Truth beyond our comprehension. Rather than Infinite Surprise, I think most of us prefer predictability and control.
The Gospel can be fearsome. It asks that we let go of our limited human “geometry”; that we entrust everything to the Inclusive Love who is Jesus Christ. It asks us to open ourselves to the Holy Spirit who, ultimately, will “teach us EVERYTHING”.
In our recent readings, we’ve seen Thomas, Philip, and today, Jude trying to reach this level of spiritual trust. It’s hard because such trust is more than human. It is a trust bred of the Holy Spirit within us. It is a trust born of living fully in Peace with that Presence.
It is a trust described like this in tomorrow’s Gospel reading:
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.
Let us pray for trust and peace in ourselves, our Church, and world.
Music:Wonderful Peace – an old Gospel song by Warren Cornell and William Cooper (1899), sung here by Don Moen
Far away in the depths of my spirit tonight
Rolls a melody sweeter than psalm;
In celestial strains it unceasingly falls
O’er my soul like an infinite calm.
Peace, peace, wonderful peace,
Coming down from the Father above!
Sweep over my spirit forever, I pray
In fathomless billows of love!
Ah, soul! are you here without comfort and rest,
Marching down the rough pathway of time?
Make Jesus your Friend ere the shadows grow dark;
O accept of this peace so sublime!
What a treasure I have in this wonderful peace,
Buried deep in the heart of my soul,
So secure that no power can mine it away,
While the years of eternity roll!
I am resting tonight in this wonderful peace,
Resting sweetly in Jesus’ control;
For I’m kept from all danger by night and by day,
And His glory is flooding my soul!
And I think when I rise to that city of peace,
Where the Anchor of peace I shall see,
That one strain of the song which the ransomed will sing
In that heavenly kingdom will be:
Peace, peace, wonderful peace,
Coming down from the Father above!
Sweep over my spirit forever, I pray
In fathomless billows of love!
Today, in Mercy, our Gospel tells us that our life is about getting to know God ever more intimately. Otherwise, when we come to our final moments, we may not be recognized by our Lord and Master.
Could this be possible? Could God not recognize the work of his own hands, the one made in God’s own image?
Probably not. But what I think the Gospel suggests is that if, throughout our whole lives, we have never prayed or drawn closer to God, God’s own image in us may be quite obscured after that disconnected lifetime.
Sometimes we might hear a person say that they don’t know how to get started talking with God in prayer. They seem to feel it’s kind of like a blind date where you end up realizing you have nothing in common with each other.
St. Paul says no, wait a minute. God is already within you simply by the nature of your creaturehood . You are made of the very stuff of God. In fact, the Spirit of God deep within our souls is like the fiery magma from a volcano. It erupts from our love and prays for us to the Creator – if we will only let it.
Let us give the Spirit the space, time and invitation to rise up in our hearts, praying with us and through us. In the deep love of that relationship, we will know ourselves to be recognized and loved. We can trust that all things are working together for our good.
Music: Spirit Seeking Light and Beauty – by Janet Erskine Stuart, interpreted here by the Daughters of St. Paul (Lyrics below)
Spirit seeking light and beauty,
Heart still longing for your rest
In your search for understanding,
Only thus can you be blest,
Through the vastness of creation, Though your restless thought may roam,
God is all that you can long for,
God is all creation’s home.
Taste and see God, feel and hear God,
Hope and grasp the unseen hand;
Though the darkness seem to hide you,
Faith and love can understand.
Loving Wisdom, guiding Spirit,
All our hearts are made anew.
Lead us through the land of shadows
‘Til we come to rest in you.
Today, in Mercy,in our reading from Acts, the disciples continue to show immense courage in preaching the Word.They are bursting with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, soon to be confirmed in them on Pentecost.
We, too, have these gifts confirmed in us, not only when we receive the sacrament of Confirmation, but each time we open our hearts without reserve to the Holy Spirit and her ensuing abundance:
Wisdom
Understanding
Counsel, or Right Judgment Fortitude, or Courage
Knowledge Piety, or Reverence
Fear of the Lord, or Awesome Wonder
Sometimes, we unfortunately forget to call on these infinite gifts as we navigate life’s challenges. It is a blessing to remember that we are not doing this thing called “Life” alone, just as the early disciples were charged by the power of God.
Our Gospel confirms the availability of God’s unbounded Grace to all who believe:
For the one whom God sent speaks the words of God. He does not ration his gift of the Spirit. The Father loves the Son and has given everything over to him. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life.
Let’s consciously claim that unrationed grace today! Oh, what a difference it might make in our lives!
Music: Mozart: Veni Sancte Spiritus (Latin and English Lyrics below)
Veni sancte Spiritus: Reple tuorum corda fidelium: et tui amoris in eis ignem accende. qui per diversitatem linguarum cunctarum gentes in unitate fidei congregasti. Alleluia.
Come Holy Spirit: fill the hearts of your faithful, and kindle your love in them. You have gathered the nations together in the unity of faith. Alleluia.
Today, in Mercy, our reading from the Book of Numbers reveals a very human moment between Joshua and Moses.
Moses is getting older. He realizes that the time is approaching for him to hand over the leadership of his people. God seems to realize that too.
The LORD came down in the cloud and spoke to Moses. Taking some of the spirit that was on Moses, the LORD bestowed it on the seventy elders; and as the spirit came to rest on them, they prophesied.
Joshua, ever since his youth, has been aide to Moses. Moses is his hero – the one, who having spoken with God, led the People out of Egypt. Now Joshua sees other ordinary guys assuming some of Moses’s roles. Joshua feels his own security and comfort shifting beneath him, hints of a spiritual earthquake.
An outraged Joshua alerts Moses, begging him to stop these supposed imposters. But Moses assures Joshua with words no hero-worshipper ever wants to hear:
Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the people of the LORD were prophets! Would that the LORD might bestow his spirit on them all!
What a powerful question Moses poses. It searches Joshua’s heart:
Are you jealous for my sake?
Are you fearful, biased, closed-hearted,
and self-protective because you fear
that you and I will lose position and power?
Surely Moses senses Joshua emerging as the next leader of Israel — even though Joshua might not share that awareness yet. Moses wants him to see that it is the Spirit of God Who leads the People through any human means She wishes.
When we presume to control the Spirit, or think to invest Her power only in our own particular “heroes”, we close ourselves to the amazing, surprising power of God. This Divine Power cannot be controlled and, like wildflowers through concrete, will bloom where She chooses.
We see the fruits of such presumption all over our histories: the falsely assumed superiority of men over women, whiteness over color, wealth over labor, age over youth, or any form of dominance over mutuality. These assumptions become concretized in our culture, hardening us to the movements of the Spirit.
If we have any hold on privilege in our lives, we might be inclined to profit by these assumptions. It is just such an inclination that Moses nips in Joshua in this powerful exchange between revered teacher and apprentice.
Music: An oldie, but goodie. Always brings me a deep peace.I hope it does the same for you, dear reader.
Today, in Mercy, we celebrate the great Feast of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit comes to us to remain with us forever. May we open our hearts and souls to this infinite power of God within us!
The Pentecost Sequence is so beautiful. You might like to find the phrase within the Sequence that most touches your heart and soul at this particular time in your life. Let that phrase bless you with the Holy Spirit’s Love.
May this be our prayer for today and the days to come: Come, O Holy Spirit, come! From Your bright and blissful Home Rays of healing light impart.
Come, Father of the poor, Source of gifts that will endure Light of ev’ry human heart.
You of all consolers best, Of the soul most kindly Guest, Quick’ning courage do bestow.
In hard labor You are rest, In the heat You refresh best, And solace give in our woe.
O most blessed Light divine, Let Your radiance in us shine, And our inmost being fill.
Nothing good by man is thought, Nothing right by him is wrought, When he spurns Your gracious Will.
Cleanse our souls from sinful stain, Lave our dryness with Your rain, Heal our wounds and mend our way.
Bend the stubborn heart and will, Melt the frozen, warm the chill, Guide the steps that go astray.
On the faithful who in You, Trust with childlike piety, Deign Your sevenfold gift to send.
Give them virtue’s rich increase, Saving grace to die in peace, Give them joys that never end.
Amen. Alleluia.
Music: The Pentecost Sequence in beautiful Gregorian Chant
Lavish Mercy 