May 21, 2007 – Monday of the 7th Week of Easter
Acts 19, 1-8; Jn 16, 29-33
Caldey Abbey, Caldey Island, Wales, UK
H O M I L Y
Dear Brothers,
One thing that strikes me in the readings from the
Acts of the Apostles that we have during this Easter Season is that there were
many ways of becoming a Christian during that first Christian generation. It is also fascinating to see how the
community of believers gradually became a Church and gradually gave itself
structures in answer to new situations and new needs.
Paul and Apollos had both become disciples of Christ
in unconventional ways, Paul through his experience on the road to Damascus and
Apollos through his study of the Scriptures as a fervent Jew. In today’s reading we see that Paul found in
Ephesus, pretty far for Judaea and Galilee, disciples of Jesus who had received
the baptism of John. This means that not
only the Apostles and their disciples but also John the Baptist’s disciples had
brought the faith in Jesus Christ to the land of the Nations. Then these disciples heard Jesus’ message and
were baptized, and they received the Holy Spirit promised by Jesus.
That promise of Jesus was not only for the early
Church. It was for the Church of all
times. It was for us. To us also Jesus
is sending his Holy Spirit and these days between the celebration of Ascension
and Pentecost are days when the liturgy reminds us of that gift and of the need
to dispose ourselves to it.
We celebrate this morning a mass of the Holy Spirit at
the beginning of a Regular Visitation, which is a time when, as a community, we
want to discern God’s graces on our community and also the calls to new growth
He may be addressing to us. When we pray
the Holy Spirit in such circumstances, we don’t ask Him to tell us what we
should do – either through internal illumination or through external signs. We rather ask him to purify our hearts so
that we might be able to see the persons and the events with God’s eyes ad then
take the necessary decisions. He will not take them for us.
In the Gospel we just heard, which is from the last
part of Jesus’ discourses to his disciples at the Last Supper, just before his
death, He speaks of his last hour, when the disciples will be scattered and he
will be left alone, he adds this very important statement: Yet I can never be alone; the Father is with me. And he adds that he is telling those things so
that they may find peace in Him.
As a Christian community – whether we are talking of
the Church as a whole, or of a local Church as our monastic community is, we are always running the risk of being scattered. Then the only way to find peace is by listening
to Jesus’ words over and over again. He
does not speak of “keeping” our peace, but of “finding” it. It is not something that is given for ever. It is a treasure that we must seek and find
day after day. Jesus finds His peace in
the knowledge that even when his disciples are scattered he is not alone
because the Father is with Him.
Let us ask the Spirit that we have received to make us
more and more aware of the presence of the Father and of His Son in our lives,
so that we might be able to see ourselves and our community as God sees us, to
experience his love for us and the calls to growth that come with that love.