SundayGospelReflection.org

Gospel Reflection 20070513

Strong self-esteem grows from seeing yourself as God sees you.
God created you so special that the Holy Spirit lives in you. The Holy Spirit is the life-giving marrow of the skeleton of self-esteem that is built within you.
Being a Catholic takes time.
It takes time to grow into a mature Catholic. One who has grown through various stages of faith: an experienced faith (learned in one's family), an affiliative faith (unquestioned sense of belonging), a searching faith (seeking answers to challenging questions), and an owned faith (one who personally chooses to belong). You may have been baptized into the faith as an infant, but you will remain a Catholic only if you grow into it.

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Make Me Your Holy Temple
Sixth Sunday of Easter

Gospel
Jn 14:23-29

Jesus said to his disciples:
“Whoever loves me will keep my word,
and my Father will love him,
and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.
Whoever does not love me does not keep my words;
yet the word you hear is not mine
but that of the Father who sent me.

“I have told you this while I am with you.
The Advocate, the Holy Spirit,
whom the Father will send in my name,
will teach you everything
and remind you of all that I told you.
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.
You heard me tell you,
‘I am going away and I will come back to you.’
If you loved me,
you would rejoice that I am going to the Father;
for the Father is greater than I.
And now I have told you this before it happens,
so that when it happens you may believe.”



The Gospel of St. John today tells us much about the early Church and about the Church of today. Actually they are one and the same. In the Gospel, Jesus is preparing His apostles for His Ascension and departure from them in His human form. He tells them that He has not been able to teach them all that He wanted in the three short years they were together. However, He will send them the Holy Spirit who will enlighten them and teach them the complete message from the Father. What they discovered on Pentecost was that they were to be the instruments of the Holy Spirit and the very means of teaching the Father's message and spreading it to the whole world. They were and we are the Church and the Church is the instrument of the Holy Spirit alive in the World today.
The Church, through its teaching authority which comes from Christ, continues to proclaim the message of the Father to the World. When Jesus gave the Keys of the Kingdom to St. Peter, He entrusted to His Church that teaching authority. As the voice of the Holy Spirit on earth, the Church has the profound task of making Christ present in the World.
Jesus promised that although he was leaving, it would only be for a short time and then He would return. Some of his apostles misunderstood Him and believed that the Second Coming was to take place immediately. What they came to understand was that Jesus has returned to us in His Church, the Body of Christ.
Christ Knows We Need Reassurance.
It is scary when we learn that a loved one will be leaving us for an undetermined amount of time. We can think of the soldiers who go off to war and how hard it must be for their spouses and children to deal with the loneliness and uncertainties that naturally arise. Yet the good soldier assures them he will return, and he is confident that they will be strong and live upright lives. How hard it must have been for the apostles when Christ told them he would be leaving them. They had left everything to follow him, and now it seemed as if they would be alone. Christ knew how heavy their hearts were, so he assured the apostles that he needed to leave in order that he and the Father could send the Holy Spirit into their hearts. The Holy Spirit enlightens our hearts too, as he enlightened the hearts of the apostles.
We Should Rejoice Because Christ Is Going Home.
Christ is the Prince of Peace. He sought to uplift the apostles, who were dragged down by sadness and fear that they would be left alone in the world. Christ tells them, and he tells us, that they should rejoice because he is going home. Christ wants us to rejoice not only because he is going home to the Father, but also because if we keep his word, he and the Father will make their dwelling in us. Their abode will be in our hearts. He wants us to trust the Holy Spirit who will give us the clarity of thought and the strength to live Christ’s teachings coherently.
What is our role in this Divine plan? We need to be aware of the role of the Church and its teaching authority in the world. We must accept this and see in it the work of the Holy Spirit, acting through the Church. Most importantly, we must be aware of our call to be the voice, the hands, the eyes and ears of Christ in the World today. Who is to make Christ present if not you and me? This is not a job that we can pass along to anyone else. We cannot expect the Government to do it, nor some social service agency. It’s our job, yours and mine. When we receive the Eucharist today, we become one with Christ in a very special way. He calls us to take Him out of this church and into the World. Pope John Paul II, said that our Faith does not come alive until we share it with another. Let us make our Faith alive today!

Can you possibly imagine the religious world of the near East when Jesus came and turned it upside down? When He took many of the age-old beliefs and traditions of the Jewish people and supplanted them with a version of His own? When He took the Old Covenant and revamped it as the New Covenant? We think that the "changes" that took place at the time of the Second Vatican Council were earth shaking; they were nothing compared to the revolution that Christ brought about.

Jesus' New Covenant. As the gospel reminds us, this New Covenant would be one of "love", pure and simple. "Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him." All the Law would be summed up in the two great commands "Love God above all things and love your neighbor as yourself." This was to be the life of the follower of Christ from then to the end of time.
It sounds so simple. But what does it mean? One of the better definitions of "love" that I have found is that of St. Thomas Aquinas. "Love is the inclination to something good." It will depend on what the person perceives as "good" as to what his love will be. If he considers money good and sets out to obtain money, he has a love for money. If she looks at chocolate as good, and reaches out for chocolate, she has a love of chocolate. There are a great number of things that one can look upon as "good" and hence there are many different kinds of love that he can have. It stands to reason that the greatest love of all would be that which directs us, inclines us, to the greatest good. And since the greatest good, as the theologians would say, the "Summum Bonum", is God, the greatest love we have must be for God. Which is why the first and greatest commandment is "Love God above all things."
After that our love will be defined by what we are inclined to accept as greater good or lesser good. The love of a man for his wife, his children should come ahead of his love for his golf game. But, sad to say, some become so mixed up that they will elevate that which is not an important "good" at all, so that it, in their thinking, becomes more important than it really is. And into life comes trouble.
In fact, as the Lord puts it, the Second Commandment is like to the first, "Love your neighbor as yourself." So, the way we rate our love is how we rate our neighbors. The neighbor that is closest and nearest and most important and most "good" must receive our greatest love. The mother and father must receive the love of the child. The child must receive the love of the parent. The wife that of the husband, and the husband that of the wife. And so on down the list of our neighbors - some are much more important than others and, thereby, must receive the greater love from us.
What could be the greatest good that I would bring to my neighbor? Eternal happiness with our loving God. The reason why men and women marry is because they love each other. If their love is of the ultimate, it will be a desire to bring the greatest good to the one loved. Through marriage they will save their souls. The love of husband and wife should primarily include the desire to help the other achieve his/her immortal salvation, help him/her reach the happiness of heaven. That is why it so horrendous when those who should be loving each other become the cause or source of sin. How can one claim to love if he encourages the other to sin? How can young people considering marriage think they love each other when by or with the misuse or abuse of the beauty of sex they cause each other to sin? That is not love, it is sin! And sin is just the opposite of love; an inclination to something evil.
Of course it is sometimes difficult to discern what is the good and what is the evil. Which is why we must pray and think and seek advice to determine what is the good. So often we will take the easy way out. And because the Joneses are doing it, because this celebrity, this star, this athlete, this Miss America is doing it, we think it is proper for us to copy them. This is the coward's way out. The person who loves will try every way to make sure that good is being achieved. And if he loves, if she loves, it will be true good. Pray hard. Love God and love your neighbor. That's all that Jesus and the New Covenant asks.

Things really don't change much over the centuries, do they? Today we see problems existing in the Church. Some individuals place tremendous importance on minor things and miss the really important ones. Do you think that Jesus really cares if we bow, or kneel, or sit or stand? I know of a parish that recently went through a terrible conflict over what type of cross to hang over the altar. One group wanted this type, another wanted a different type. Hurtful words were spoken, charges of heresy were hurled back and forth. Some even left the parish for another and many still don't speak to each other. What a sad situation. We are like the Pharisees who placed so much importance on the external show of religion, but failed to have faith and love in their hearts. You know what Jesus thought of them. Our emphasis should be on faith and doing right, of following the teachings of Jesus to love God and our neighbor as ourselves.
Some of us just can't accept change, or have a very difficult time accepting it. We like to stay in our comfortable rut and just go from day to day, year to year doing the same old thing in the same old way. But change happens constantly. We could no more exist in the Holy Land of two thousand years ago than we could fly, nor could those people exist in our world. Things have changed tremendously in our own lifetime. The Second Vatican Council was called, just like that first Council, to solve problems in the Church. Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the fathers of the Council took the bold steps of moving from a Counter-Reformation Church into a 20th Century Church and going back to the very roots of our Faith. Even though it’s been forty years since the Council, some among us still have a problem accepting the changes. But what changed? The Creed is still the same, the Sacraments are still the same, the Word of God is still the same. Jesus is still with us and the Holy Spirit guides the Church every moment.
Jesus, in St. John's Gospel, puts it very simply, "Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him." We only need to follow Jesus, to live the Gospel message every day of our lives. He says, "Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid." How can we be afraid if we truly believe that He is with us always, as He promised?
Today, as we leave this Eucharistic celebration, let us make resolution to put aside those trivial external things that seem to cause so much grief and concentrate on the one thing that matters - Love - for God and for neighbor


Our Gospel today teaches clearly the link between Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the Apostles and the Church. The reading makes it plain that the truth Jesus teaches originates, not in Himself, but in the Father and will be unfolded gradually in its fullness to the Apostles by the Holy Spirit until the end of time. It is obedience to this truth alone which is the test of genuine love of Jesus, the Father and the Holy Spirit. Keeping Jesus' word means more than remembering it: it means doing it, making it one's own by free choices, obeying it. The redemption of humanity was won by Jesus, Himself "doing the truth," that is, obeying the Father, in His death and Resurrection. Those deeds of Jesus guarantee the eternal validity of His word and confer the power of the Holy Spirit upon it. It is that same word which the Apostles teach and preach today in the power of the Spirit; it is that same deed which is renewed, by virtue of the Spirit, in every sacrament celebrated and, to a different degree, in every deed of truth that is done. To do the truth is charity. Charity is always truthful, for charity is of God and God is the Truth.

The Bishops do not, then, as sinful human beings, develop or invent the doctrine of the faith. It is not made up as they go along. Cultural and historical contexts will require creativity in teaching the truth, but never in a way that compromises, limits or waters down the truth itself. If, and to the degree, the Bishops were to make it up, they simply would not be being faithful to Christ, to the Spirit or to the Father. Let me read a canonical text which sums up exactly what the Bishops are to do as leaders of the Church and doctors of the faith: "The Church, to which Christ the Lord has entrusted the deposit of faith so that, with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, it might protect the revealed truth reverently, examine it more closely, and proclaim and expound it faithfully, has the duty and innate right, independent of any human power whatsoever, to preach the gospel to all peoples." The text continues: "It belongs to the Church always and everywhere to announce moral principles, even about the social order, and to render judgment concerning any human affairs insofar as the fundamental rights of the human person or the salvation of souls requires it."

How do we know that the Bishops are not making mistakes, leading us into error? The same question was asked of Christ when He was among us. Many questioned His authority and demanded signs, while ignoring those He performed. He infuriated those who made reference to Moses by telling them they had betrayed Moses. They were so conditioned by their historical and cultural contexts, and so adamant that Jesus should fit in to them, that the blazing clarity of Jesus' teachings only outraged them. Ultimately, Jesus could not appeal to their reason. Rather, He appealed to their willingness to believe Him on the basis of His word itself, or at least on the basis of the signs He gave. This same Jesus has given us the Apostles, endowed them with a fuller measure of the same Spirit who spoke through the prophets, promised them that He would remain always with them, that the Spirit would guarantee their teaching of His word from the powers of hell, confirmed their words by powerful deeds and assured them that the world would hate them as it hated Him. "He who hears you, hears me," He told them, because other than the Gospel of Christ, the Bishops and the Church Herself, have nothing else to say. Therefore, the certainty of the teaching of the Bishops does not proceed from them, but from the Trinitarian God. Ultimately, we receive and obey the teachings of the Bishops because we believe in Christ's faithfulness to His own Word and that Word He has entrusted to them for our salvation. That is how we know they do not lead us into error.

We may experience a certain annoyance with Jesus that He did not stay here Himself and talk to us all, instead of sending us these people. I wonder, however, even if Jesus in person were to teach us what the Church teaches us today, would we really listen or be convinced. Might we not rather ask Him to keep quiet? In our culture of opinions and opinionated ness, of claims, not only to genuine fundamental rights and freedoms, but also to other pseudo-rights and freedoms, we might treat Jesus as just another self-made preacher from the "religious right" or the "religious left," and dissect and reject His Gospel as being contrary to the Universal Declaration on Human Rights or to the Constitution! What is certain is that this kind of remark is already being made of our Bishops.

Clearly, the underlying question here is one of faith, a faith which is limitless trust in Christ Himself and in the utter certainty of His faithfulness to us. Either the Catholic Church is fundamentally one of the greatest scams of history or, with all Her problems and errors and crimes, She is the Bride to whom Christ remains faithful, through whom He gathers the human race to Himself notwithstanding the thick and thin of Her sins and her failures. Herein lies one important aspect of the Church's life: the contradiction between Her holiness as the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church, and yet the presence within Her of individual sinners, including both you and me, and ordained and consecrated men and women. That contradiction rightly disappoints us. We look for holiness not in just some abstract, collective form, in the Church, but in the concrete men and women who share in Her life, especially those who lead. To combine two phrases often used at the time of the Reformation: the Church is always in need of reform because the Church is always at the same time holy and sinful. She is holy because of God; She is sinful because of us. While the Holy cannot condone the sin, the Holy does not abandon the sinner who repents. No one should be cast off because they sin; but neither should they be embraced because they sin. The father embraces the prodigal son because he has repented, not because he has sinned. No one should reject himself because he sins; rather, he should reject his sin because he loves himself. If God does not reject me, how can I reject myself? If God rejects my sin, how can I keep it and claim that I am also keeping His word? The contradiction in the Church does not come from Christ nor from what the Bishops teach in His Name; it comes from sin, and sin exists in the sinner, and all of us are sinners, all of us need repentance, all of us need the merciful embrace of the Father, each of us is the contradiction. Our pain at our leaders' sins and weaknesses may simply come from the fact that we yearn for a holiness in them which we don't see or feel in ourselves. "They are Christ for us," we say, "and Christ is sinless," so, we cry, "they should be sinless too!" At the same time, we know they are men, yet somehow secretly wish they were not, but some kind of angel or semi-divinity or reincarnation of Jesus. Such yearnings are understandable, but naturally they can lead to fantasy and, when the bubble bursts, to terrible disillusionment and anger. One minute we are in love with all they are and represent, the next we want nothing to do with the whole thing! How human, and how lovable, but how in need of a deeper faith and trust in God and of a deeper understanding of both the mystery of grace and the mystery of iniquity! When Christ promised that the gates of hell would not prevail against the Church, surely the sins of the clergy, the failures of pastors to lead and teach, the succumbing to the spirit of the world among priests, were also in His mind. But the center of our attention must not be an obsessive anger with these: rather it must be in a holy, defiant trust in the "gates of hell not prevailing," i.e., in the fidelity and invincibility of Christ's truth. Today's difficulties thus give us a strange opportunity to turn and to confide more deeply in Christ's own presence in the Church. He alone is the holy one and each of us in our own vocation is called to emulate that holiness, not least by forgiving the repentant sinner, in ourselves and in our neighbor, whoever that is.

There are matters of faith and morals in the life of the Church which form Her core: the creed contains many of them, although there are others, such as the natural moral law. These issues are ones about which the Church cannot err because Christ, as Creator and Redeemer, cannot err. There are other issues, in matters of faith and morals, where the Church's teaching is not definitive, at least not yet. These issues would not be core issues in the sense I have explained it, but, because the truth is a unity, they are nevertheless related to that core. On such issues, although it may be legitimate to disagree, the obligation of faith requires us to be and to remain open to the Church's direction. Because something is not taught as infallible does not mean we don't have to listen or develop an openness and willingness to accept what is taught. If I believe in Christ and love Him and His Church, the desire of charity in me should be to develop a culture of "yes," a willingness to learn if I do not yet understand, a willingness sometimes even to say yes without understanding at all. Vatican II describes this attitude of the believing Catholic as "the religious acceptance of the mind and of the will." On matters which clearly have nothing to do with the faith, or in which differing opinions are possible, there is no moral or religious obligation to adhere to what bishops are saying. This does not mean, however, that it is licit to do what is wrong in those cases and then blame the Church because "it did not tell me what to do." The Church teaches, as Christ teaches, not so as to substitute itself for the moral responsibility of the individual, but to give us all the light of the truth which alone, if we choose it responsibly, can set us free.

Obedience to the truth is what makes freedom most fully free, most fully itself. A freedom which does not follow the truth will literally never define itself. It gives the impression of conserving for itself all options, but, at a certain point, all options become no option. The serpent's deception of Eve was precisely to promise a freedom without limits, the lie of pretending one is God. But that is simply not the truth, not the reality. For the human being, that would be an unrealistic freedom which therefore actually prevents the person himself from being real. Keeping all options open is a radical reluctance to engage in reality; it is to live in a dream or in a fantasy -- or in a lie. Love can only be found with your feet on the ground, and we can only land there if we choose reality, the truth. Mere external acknowledgment of the truth, however, if it is not interiorized in sincerity of heart, conscience and action, is a sham. A line from a psalm reads: "why do you recite my covenant, yet throw my words to the winds?" The words by which the truth of Christ is taught to us convey the power of Christ's life and love, for that is whence they come. That is our ground. If the words by which we say we receive Christ's message do not in turn proceed from our hearts, then His word becomes like a very precious liquid being poured off the back of a duck. If freedom is used willfully and consciously to endorse error, then a person will, to that degree, define themselves as erroneous, as a "false person." The deliberate rejection of Christ's truth, be it conveyed by Scripture or by the Church's magisterium, proves the following words of Jesus: "It is not I who will condemn you ... the word itself I have spoken will condemn you." Christ can do no more to save us than He has already done, and He has entrusted it all to the Apostles to be ministered to all creation for all time through the preaching of the Gospel and in the administration of the sacraments. Christ is the truth. Christ is true reality. Christ is true freedom. And that Christ is given to you and for you through the men, poor and sinful though they be, called the Bishops of the Catholic Church.

There is much today that militates against our finding peace in our faith. It shall not prevail. The peace Christ gives can be neither taken from us by the world nor given to us by the world. Neither the moral and spiritual terrorism of a society which boasts openly of being godless, nor the terrible crimes of some priests or bishops, nor the erosion of faithful Catholic witness in society, must deter us from remaining true and firm in the faith of the Church. Christ has not abandoned us, nor is His Resurrection somehow rendered void by the failure of some or the doubts of others. So, have courage, be vigilant with Catholic commonsense and, in the midst of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church, pray as you have never prayed before.


The first three Commandments: http://www.usccb.org/catechism/text/pt3sect2chpt1ind.htm "YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND"
Commandments 4 through 10: http://www.usccb.org/catechism/text/pt3sect2chpt2ind.htm "YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF"

posted by Mike Young @ 7:48 AM