Homily for Monday, 13 April 2015– Monday of the Second Week of Easter

Readings of the day: Acts 4:23-31; Psalm 2:1-3, 4-7a, 7b-9; John 3:1-8

Who is the Holy Spirit? Our readings today give us a sense of the effects of the Holy Spirit in the lives of Jesus’ earliest disciples, of how the Holy Spirit was acting through them. The Holy Spirit empowers Peter and John and the first Apostles “to speak the Word of God with boldness.” Our reading this morning from Acts says that Peter and John “went back to their own people and reported what the chief priests and elders had told them.” Peter and John had just been warned by these “chief priests and elders” not to speak publicly of Jesus any longer. The Holy Spirit gives Peter and John the courage to risk their lives in defiance of this order of the religious leaders of Jerusalem; to risk their lives for Christ, the living Word of God.

The Holy Spirit, Jesus says in John’s Gospel, will enable Nicodemus to be “born again,” not only by water but “by water and the Holy Spirit.” For the Pharisee Nicodemus and for all of us, the Holy Spirit is the way to salvation. We, too, are “born again”; we, too, receive the Holy Spirit in the sacraments of baptism and confirmation. 

But, again, who is the Holy Spirit? Is this not an almost impossible question for us to answer? Jesus’ words to Nicodemus in our Gospel reading this morning do not seem to help us much in identifying, much less understanding, the Holy Spirit. “The wind blows where it wills… so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit,” Jesus says.

Who, then, is the Holy Spirit: A mysterious “wind”; a force that cannot be contained; God, the third person of the Trinity who is all spirit; does not have a body…? One of the best descriptions I have read of the Holy Spirit, I believe from the theologian Bernard Cooke’s book, The Spirit and the Power of God, is of the Holy Spirit as divine “mischief.”

But do we not think of mischief as usually a bad thing? The Holy Spirit as divine mischief still remains a distant, mysterious power that is not necessarily good. Let me propose, then, as Bernard Cooke does in Power and the Spirit of God, that we think and pray about how we understand and experience power.

Power can be negative: “Power over” another by controlling wealth and resources; by making others fear acting against the wishes of the more powerful; the power of fame or of one’s public office (although this can also be used to benefit other people)… But none of this is how God acts; none of this describes the power of God.

God’s power, worked through the Holy Spirit, is power for creativity, for imagination, for kindness; for seeking the good of one another; for love. These kinds of power can be and are mischievous; uncontrollable. Still today, like Peter and John in Acts, many risk arrest; risk their lives because they are empowered by the Holy Spirit. These people challenge power structures in our world. Many more, and all of us, are filled with the power of the Holy Spirit by our baptism. This is the power to live and speak God’s word boldly, for the good of one another.

Homily for Sunday, 12 April 2015– Second Sunday of Easter

Divine Mercy Sunday

Readings of the day: Acts 4:32-35; Psalm 118:2-4, 13-15, 22-24; 1 John 5:1-6; John 20:19-31

This homily was given during the monthly Mass for Pax Christi, a Catholic movement to promote peace, at the Federal Building in downtown Rochester, NY.

“Peace be with you.” Is this not a beautiful and yet very simple greeting? How appropriate that we hear the risen Jesus greet his disciples, on “that first day of the week” after his resurrection: “Peace be with you”! We here are dedicated to the peace of Christ. We are a movement named and entrusted with bringing into; witnessing in our world to the peace of Christ, Pax Christi. And so, on this day especially, “Peace be with you.”

But can this greeting not also be somewhat off-putting? In a few moments, just before we receive Christ in our Eucharist, I will invite us, in Christ’s own words, to offer one another a sign of peace: “Peace be with you.” But have some of us, especially those of us who remember the Mass before Vatican II, ever found the sign of peace where it is now during Mass to be off-putting? It is fairly new to us to “offer a sign of peace” just before receiving communion. The sign of peace just before communion is only about fifty years old, dating back to Vatican II.

Have any of us heard, mainly from Catholics a generation or two before my time, but from some younger faithful, too, words like “unnerving,” “off-putting,” “embarrassing,” and even “distracting” to describe our exchange of a sign of peace just when we are preparing reverently to receive communion? There sometimes seems to be no “right” way to give and receive the sign of peace. Have we not seen timid handshakes, the peace sign to somebody across several pews, or the people who wander to try to shake hands with every person in the building? Alright, perhaps this might be a bit excessive…

Yet our sign of peace has deep roots in our Catholic liturgy. Dominican Fr. Timothy Radcliffe, who lives in Oxford, England, speaks of this history in a humorous way. Fr. Radcliffe says that in the 1200s the newly-founded Dominican and Franciscan orders were sent to preach peace and unity among people from divided city states in northern Italy. Before communion at Mass, there would be a pause for “a solemn moment of reconciliation.” Each person would embrace the person next to them: “Peace be with you.” How is this for off-putting; unnerving; embarrassing?

“Peace be with you.” This ritual sign of peace as we know it was recovered at Vatican II as a symbol of our peace with all people. Fr. Radcliffe also tells the story of two of the “fathers” of Vatican II, the French theologians Marie-Dominique Chenu and Yves Congar. Congar’s sign of peace “was a grave and formal gesture,” Radcliffe says, “whereas Chenu” would “affectionately” punch and hug his neighbor and tug on his hair! How is this for off-putting, unnerving, and embarrassing? And yet this is nothing compared to medieval northern Italians reconciling and wishing Christ’s peace to the people they had just tried to kill in battle!

“Peace be with you.” Why is this such an off-putting, unnerving, maybe embarrassing gesture, even for many of us today? Why, perhaps, should it be? What are the effects of Christ’s peace, of wishing Christ’s peace, to one another? Let us return to our Gospel reading today. What was the effect of Christ’s peace on Jesus’ first disciples, gathered behind locked doors a few days after Jesus’ resurrection?

Imagine for a moment being one of these first disciples. We hear from John that “the doors were locked” to the room where they were gathered, for fear of the religious leaders of the day who had put Jesus to death; for fear of their own lives! And then Jesus enters the locked room and greets them: “Peace be with you.” Does this not raise off-putting, unnerving, and embarrassing, not to mention frightening, to a new level?

The first effect of this peace that the risen Christ gives to his disciples is the gift of the Holy Spirit. “Receive the Holy Spirit,” Jesus says. And what does the Holy Spirit empower us to do? The Holy Spirit empowers us to go out to the world; to evangelize the world with Christ’s peace for one another; with the same gift of the Holy Spirit for one another: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

Christ sends us forth with his peace; his gift of the Holy Spirit, a gift that empowers us to forgiveness and, at the same time, conviction and accountability: “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.” The Holy Spirit enables us to keep God’s commandments, the sign that we love God and one another according to our second reading today, from the First Letter of John. The Holy Spirit is “the one who testifies”; the one who bears witness to the truth through us. The Holy Spirit bears witness to the truth that, with God, peace is possible and indeed our responsibility as baptized Christians. “The Spirit is truth.”

The Holy Spirit empowers us to be what is impossible without God’s presence and action in our lives: To be “of one heart and mind” in bearing witness to the resurrected Christ. “Peace be with you”: This is not a peace that is a mere absence of violence or war; a peace that means keeping one foot on the throat of our enemy. This is a peace that seeks one another’s good; a peace borne out of true love of God and of one another. Christ’s peace, given us by the gift of the Holy Spirit, empowers us to love in this way; to love as God loves us. Christ’s peace and gift of the Holy Spirit also empower us to bold words and actions of faith.

When Jesus stands among his disciples and greets them the first time, “Peace be with you… receive the Holy Spirit,” the Apostle Thomas is not present with the others. Why is Thomas not present? This could be for many reasons: Perhaps fear; perhaps a feeling of being wounded by his own guilt, which had broken down his faith. But the risen Christ does not give up on us; does not give up on Thomas. “A week later,” when Thomas is present with the other disciples, Jesus appears and greets them once again: “Peace be with you.”

Is Thomas unnerved; embarrassed; frightened? He is probably all three. Thomas speaks what the other disciples are probably all feeling: “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nailmarks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” Jesus invites Thomas to put his hands in Jesus’ wounds. Jesus invites Thomas to make physical contact with his and our own woundedness; our own sin that, with Jesus Christ, was put to death that day on Calvary.

This is the condition for true healing for Thomas and for us: To touch our own woundedness; our own sin; our violence done to our own human dignity; our own lack of peace. This is the only way for us to true forgiveness; to true peace. Only then is Thomas able to exclaim with possibly the most beautiful and profound profession of faith in all of Scripture: “My Lord and my God”!

For Thomas and for us, is this way to peace, to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit of witness; of faith; of forgiveness; of peace; of God’s love for us, not off-putting; unnerving, or perhaps embarrassing? I imagine so.

And yet to be in touch with our own woundedness is the only way for us to be healed; the only way for us to “receive the Holy Spirit”; the only way for us to receive the peace of our risen Christ, a peace the world cannot give. It is the only way for us to be able then to exclaim boldly with the believing Apostle Thomas: “My Lord and my God”!

“Peace be with you.”

Homily for Friday, 10 April 2015– Friday in the Octave of Easter

Readings of the day: Acts 4:1-12; Psalm 118:1-2, 4, 22-24, 25-27a; John 21:1-14

How often does our Lord encounter us exactly where we are in our lives? And, at the same time, how often are we unprepared or even afraid to encounter our Lord in these humble, everyday circumstances?

From Acts today we hear the continuation of the story of Peter’s and John’s healing of a crippled man outside the temple. Peter and John are brought before the religious leaders for healing in the name of Jesus Christ: “Annas the high priest,” the “elders and scribes,” and “all who were of the high-priestly class.” The two Apostles face with tremendous courage this same group of leaders who had killed Jesus. Peter and John, as well as the religious leaders themselves, know that this strength to witness to Christ and the power to heal the crippled man in the first place was not their own. This power; this strength, Acts emphasizes over and over, is from the Holy Spirit. We hear that Peter, “filled with the Holy Spirit, answered” the elders, scribes, and priests who were trying him and John.

When have we been “filled with the Holy Spirit”? If we were to face persecution for our faith, would we have the same strength and courage of Peter and John; the strength and courage that are gifts of the Holy Spirit that we receive in baptism and confirmation? For us to face persecution for our faith here in the United States is unlikely, but not so in many places in our world. And so we pray for the people who are persecuted and killed; who are witnesses to Christ by their lives today. And let us pray for the same Holy Spirit to give us the strength to end violence and poverty in our world and here in our country and city.

But are there not times when we feel anything but strong and courageous? Have there been times in our lives when we are more like Peter and the other disciples in our Gospel reading this morning than like Peter and John in Acts? Are there times when we expect a great sign or surge in strength and courage from our Lord, and here we encounter him in simple, everyday events of our lives?

Imagine this: After his resurrection, Jesus had appeared to his disciples twice. But eventually Jesus’ disciples want to return to their everyday activities. Are they maybe still fearful for their lives should they identify openly as followers of Jesus, who had been brutally killed? Peter, the same Peter who, inspired by the Holy Spirit, would later show great courage before hostile religious leaders, announces, “I am going fishing.” And the others follow him: I am going back to my everyday activities; back to the life with which I was comfortable.

And it is then when Jesus encounters us again, not with a great sign at first but humbly and quietly. Jesus joins us; joins Peter and the Apostles, for a simple breakfast. Jesus breaks bread and fish with them. In this simple act, the Apostles recognize that “it is the Lord.”

In the same way, Jesus encounters us in our everyday activities, but also calls us beyond our comfort zones to acknowledge him as our risen Lord and to be his disciples.

Homily for Thursday, 9 April 2015– Thursday in the Octave of Easter

Readings of the day: Acts 3:11-26; Psalm 8:2ab, 5, 6-7, 8-9; Luke 24:35-48

We hear from Luke’s Gospel today of Jesus’ first appearance to his disciples after he had risen from the dead. Jesus stands “in their midst” and greets them, “Peace be with you.”

And what are among the first responses of the risen Jesus’ disciples to his presence and greeting? We hear that the disciples “were startled and terrified”; “troubled.” They “thought they were seeing a ghost” until Jesus “showed them his hands and his feet” and ate “a piece of baked fish… in front of them.” And then they were “incredulous for joy and… amazed.” Would we have responded any differently if the risen Christ had stood among us in this way?

The disciples do not encounter a spirit. No, they encounter the risen Christ in “flesh and bones”; every bit as human as they are; as we are. I think it is natural (and not necessarily bad) for us to downplay, to distance ourselves even, from the full humanity of Christ, before and especially after his resurrection, and what this means for us.

Today we hear what may be my favorite Psalm in the Bible, Psalm 8. We respond, “O LORD, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth.” We pray to God, “What [are we] that you should be mindful of [us]”? What is “the son of man that you should care for him”? We give praise to God for giving us “rule over the works of [God’s] hands”; having put “all things under [our] feet.” I find these words deeply consoling and beautiful. And yet is there perhaps some distance between us and God inherent in this Psalm?

We are grateful to God for having made us almost like gods ourselves, with dominion over God’s creation like no other creature of which we know. But when God is so “mindful of” us; cares for us so deeply as to become one like us, we are, I think naturally, somewhat “startled and terrified.”

God took on our “flesh and bones” in the person of Jesus Christ, who suffered and died to redeem us from our sins. The risen Christ shows himself to his disciples, again in “flesh and bones” but also bearing the wounds of his passion and death.

We get a sense of what this means for us in our penitential rite at the beginning of this Mass. We pray: “Lord Jesus, you came to reconcile us to one another and to the Father. Lord, have mercy. Christ Jesus, you heal the wounds of sin and division. Christ, have mercy. Lord Jesus, you intercede for us with your Father. Lord, have mercy.”

Jesus reconciles us “to one another and to the Father”; heals our “wounds of sin and division” by taking our wounds; our sin upon himself and showing them to us in his risen fully human body. Jesus is able to “intercede for us with [our] Father” because he, God, has made himself human like us. There is no sanitizing this; making this “clean” and easy; keeping God at a distance from us. But, if and when the risen Christ’s full humanity scares us, he is there to calm us, too: “Peace be with you”!

“O LORD, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth.”