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Dear Preachers:
 The Acts of the Apostles starts with an
injunction by the risen Christ to wait. I wonder if the activists in that early
community weren’t frustrated by his directive. You can see that they were ready
to get on with things – and they would have gotten it all wrong. It’s their
question that reveals their misdirection, “Lord are you at this time going to
restore the kingdom of Israel?” Of course, they mean a purely external,
politically and militarily dominant kingdom of Israel. No, they will have to
wait for the baptism with the Holy Spirit, then they will know how and where to
be Jesus’ witnesses.
He wants them to break free of their limited view, their biases and tendency to
misinterpret the meaning of his life. What he also wants is that they witness to
him far beyond the boundaries of Israel. They will, he says, have to be, “...my
witnessers in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the
earth.” For all this they will need help, so they must acknowledge their
dependence on God and wait for God’s pleasure to pour that help out on them.
We are not good at waiting. We tire out if we do not get quick results. Waiting
on lines for lights; for our children to come home from the dance; with our
aging parents at the doctor’s office, etc. These days we are particularly
frustrated and tired of waiting for peace to break out in Israel, Gaza, Ukraine,
Haiti, Sudan, and other innumerable places of conflict in our world. Waiting is
not what we do well. Why is waiting so frustrating? Because it means someone
else, or some other power, is in charge, not us. And being out of control and
subject to other forces reminds us of our finiteness, and vulnerability.
Jesus tells the disciples to “...wait for the promise of the Father.” They
cannot go off spreading the news of his resurrection yet. They are a small,
fearful community that has no power on its own. As the Gospels showed, they have
a tendency to get Jesus’ message all wrong. What’s more, they flee when things
get tough. On their own they will be misguided, perhaps engage in ways that are
not of Jesus. Haven’t we Christians made some pretty big mistakes about his
message and ways? In our history are tales of promoting our religion by forced
baptisms and by trampling over the dignity and cultures of whole civilizations.
We also have, like the original disciples, been cowardly when courage was
required.
So the disciples and we must “hold our horses,” restrain ourselves and wait for
God’s promise to be fulfilled. What’s more, the fulfillment will come at God’s
timing, not our own. We are action-oriented aren’t we? We have our projects and
plans, we want to get on with things. Even when our plans and intentions are
noble and serve a good purpose, how does God figure into them? Do we know? Have
we asked? Do we wait for an answer, some direction? Maybe we have to “hurry up
and wait.” “Don’t just do something, stand there!” Waiting on the Spirit is a
reversal of our usual mode of operating.
Even as Christ talks to the disciples about their mission to the “ends of the
earth,” Luke is making sure that we do not forget what had happened in
Jerusalem. We recall the Emmaus story and the failed and frustrated hopes of the
disciples on the road. “We had hoped...” they tell the Stranger. What they had
hoped for was their version of triumph and success for Jesus – and themselves.
But Jesus had to remind them, by interpreting the scriptures “...beginning with
Moses and all the prophets,” that suffering was to be part of his life and
mission. Here, in today’s section of Acts, Luke reminds us again of that link
between Jesus’ mission and suffering, when he says that Christ “presented
himself alive to them by many proofs AFTER he had suffered.” Jesus and now the
disciples, cannot escape the suffering that comes with fidelity to the message.
Even in the presence of the risen Lord they are not far from the reality of
suffering. So, for the disciples who will have to live out and proclaim the Good
News, suffering will be the price they and we pay for our belief and for the
mission.
We need to wait for the gift of the Spirit who sustains us when the going gets
rough. We will be witnesses to Jesus by the integrity of our lives and the
commitment to his ways. If we are faithful to what his Spirit teaches us at
work, and with our families, in school and in the political arena, etc., there
will be suffering. Or, maybe worse, we will just be ignored, discounted as
unrealistic and dismissed as impossible idealists. We will need the gift of the
Spirit and the wait is worth it.
Thomas Troeger, the Presbyterian preacher and homiletician, in a
sermon preached on Ascension Day, recalled the frustration of the disciples and
the early church in their waiting and longing for the fulfillment of the reign
of God. He said we too know that frustration. After having given our lives over
to Jesus Christ, we experience not triumph, but a mixture of triumph and defeat.
Has anything really changed? What difference does our faith make? “When will
things come together in some whole and enduring pattern?” he wonders. And then
Troeger quotes Yeats’ lines to describe our world:
Things fall apart;
the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
the blood dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
the ceremony of innocence is drowned;
the best lack all conviction, while the worst
are full of passionate intensity. (from, “The Second
Coming”)
We are wearied by our waiting. With Yeats we
voice our longing, “Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming
is at hand.” It’s a lament, a prayer of need and dependence. We need help that
we cannot provide for ourselves. Troeger invites us to hear again what the early
church heard in its anguish and yearning, “It is not for you to know the times
or seasons that the Father has established by [God’s] own authority.” How
difficult it is for us to hear these words surrounded, as we are, by the kind of
events we see and hear on the evening news and the internet, pictures and sounds
of tens of thousands of refugees displaced by war and terrorism, families
fleeting and children starving! What we have, Troeger reminds us, is the belief
that Christ reigns and will send the Holy Spirit to help us live as we must. We
cannot force the hand of this Spirit, it is a gift constantly coming upon us.
And one that still requires waiting.
(Thomas’ Troeger’s sermon was
preached in 1982 and is reprinted in, SEASONS OF PREACHING (N.Y. Liturgical
Publications, eds. John M. Rottman and Paul Scott Wilson, pages 158-9.)
Click here for a
link to this Sunday’s readings:
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/051224-Ascension.cfm
QUOTABLE
I am praying for Pentecost! It is not so much
about people speaking “in a strange tongue” as it is about believers getting
power to be faithful. The church does not need power to identify with the rich
and privileged. One gets a subsidiary power from such an identification that
makes the church at least a valuable adjunct of the values of the principalities
and powers. One does not really need power (dunamis) unless one is standing in
tension with the world as it is. If the church were to put the poor first, would
we once again receive Pentecostal power?
Maybe we do not desire such power or the consequences of Jesus’ liberation
mandate. Yet, I cannot help hoping that such power would come and we would
experience the power of the inbreaking, radical reign of God. Come, Lord Jesus,
come!
—Keith Russell, “Pentecost: The Power of Liberation.” The LIVING PULPIT,
April-June 2004, page 13.
HAVE YOU READ?
Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation, “Laudate Deum?”
This is a sequel to “Laudato Si,” and is addressed “To All People of Good Will
On the Climate Crisis.” The Pope furthers themes from his previous encyclical in
which we expressed his “heartfelt concerns about the care of our common home.”
He laments that the world in which we are living is collapsing and we,
especially the wealthy nations, have not responded adequately to the crisis.
JUSTICE BULLETIN BOARD
And he gave some as apostles, others as prophets, others as
evangelists, others as pastors and teachers, to equip the holy ones for the work
of ministry, for building the body of Christ.
Ephesians 4: 11-13
From the time that I
was a little girl, I was told that I would be a good teacher. Teachers even had
me reading to younger students regularly. I have come to realize over the years
that while I may impart head knowledge, it is heart knowledge that is more
important for me to convey. And what exactly is “heart knowledge?”
Through heart knowledge one finds intuition and wisdom, insight, oneness with
humanity and fullness of life. Without heart knowledge, one cannot fully
comprehend the life of Jesus--a life of accompanying the poor, a life of
questioning established thinking when it is to the detriment of the
disadvantaged, a life of compassion and understanding. Heart knowledge is
learned experientially by putting yourself in encounters with those who are not
like you, especially the poor and disadvantaged.
In his General Audience (6/12/13) Pope Francis asks, “What is the law of the
People of God?” Do you find yourself immediately searching your brain for a
formulaic answer, your head knowledge. Try instead to ask yourself that question
with heart knowledge providing the answer. Here is Pope Francis’ heart knowledge
reply, “It is the law of love, love for God and love for neighbor according to
the new commandment that the Lord left to us (cf. Jn 13:34). It is a love,
however, that is not sterile sentimentality or something vague, but the
acknowledgment of God as the one Lord of life and, at the same time, the
acceptance of the other as my true brother, overcoming division, rivalry,
misunderstanding, selfishness; these two things go together. . .We must ask the
Lord to make us correctly understand this law of love. How beautiful it is to
love one another as true brothers and sisters. How beautiful!”
http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/audiences/2013/documents/papa-francesco_20130612_udienza-generale.html
What will you do today to increase your heart knowledge? As a disciple (student)
of the master teacher Jesus, you have only to follow his example. We have many
outreach ministries here at HNOJ Cathedral where heart knowledge is increasing
every day. Jesus, though ascended, is still present, working with the disciples
as they bring his message everywhere, accompanied by the promised signs. My
heart tells me so.
Barbara
Molinari Quinby, MPS, Director
Office of Human Life, Dignity, and Justice Ministries
Holy Name of Jesus
Cathedral, Raleigh, NC
FAITH BOOK
Mini
reflections on the Sunday scripture readings designed for persons on the run.
“Faith Book” is also brief enough to be posted in the Sunday parish
bulletins people take home.
From today’s reading from the
Acts of the Apostles”:
While meeting with
the apostles,
Jesus enjoined them not to depart from Jerusalem
but to wait for “the promise of the Father about which you heard me speak.”
Reflection:
Jesus has gifted us
with the same powerful Spirit that animated and sustained him, not only through
his preaching and healing ministry, but through his long suffering and death.
Thanks to the Spirit, we are called and empowered to be modern witnesses to the
living Christ, who is reaching out in a new age to do through us, what he did in
his lifetime – preach the gospel, heal the sick and bring people back to God.
So,
we ask ourselves:
POSTCARDS TO DEATH ROW INMATES
"The death penalty is
one of the great moral issues facing our country, yet most people rarely think
about it and very few of us take the time to delve deeply enough into this issue
to be able to make an informed decision about it."
– Sister Helen Prejean
Inmates on death row are the most forgotten people in the prison system. Each
week I am posting in this space several inmates’ names and locations. I invite
you to write a postcard to one or more of them to let them know that: we have
not forgotten them; are praying for them and their families; or, whatever
personal encouragement you might like to give them. If the inmate responds, you
might consider becoming pen pals.
Please write to:
-
Martin Richardson
#0343075 (On death row since 11/22/93)
-
James Little
#0846840 (11/21/08)
-
Michael Braxton
#0043529 (11/21/97)
----Central
Prison, P.O. 247 Phoenix, MD 21131
Please note:
Central Prison is in Raleigh, NC., but for security purposes, mail to
inmates is processed through a clearing house at the above address in Maryland.
For more information
on the Catholic position on the death penalty go to the Catholic Mobilizing
Network:
http://catholicsmobilizing.org/resources/cacp/
On this page you can
sign “The National Catholic Pledge to End the Death Penalty.” Also, check the
interfaith page for People of Faith Against the Death Penalty:
http://www.pfadp.org/
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