6th Sunday of Easter

6^th Sunday of Easter A

(29 May 2011)

Fr James McTavish, FMVD

Prepare yourself for a great gift

When you are waiting for a gift as a child a common advice is “Hold out your hands and close your eyes.” The more ambitious you are the wider apart you hold your hands (as it means you are expecting a bigger gift!) In two weeks is coming a huge gift that is so great that the Son of God stretched his arms out wide on the cross for us and for our salvation. What or who is this gift? The Holy Spirit. Who is the Holy Spirit? Once I went to celebrate a funeral mass for a woman in her 70’s who in her hayday was a Miss Philippines. I talked about the eternal life – the beauty that lasts for ever. Afterwards I asked a friend for some feedback. “How was the homily?” I asked him. He replied “the Holy Spirit is a great guy!” I think and hope he was telling me that the Holy Spirit through the preaching was able to touch the heart of each person. Or maybe my homily was so bad that he was telling me in a roundabout way! The liturgy of the Church today is all about the Holy Spirit because in two weeks we will celebrate Pentecost but we need time to prepare our hearts to receive such a great gift.

If we are able to talk about who is the Holy Spirit we have to give thanks to the so-called Capadoccian Fathers. There were three of them - Basil the Great, his brother Gregory of Nyssa and their friend Gregory Nazianzen. They came from a region called Cappadocia (modern day Turkey) and lived in the 4^th century. At that time some doubted that the Holy Spirit was really God but the Capadoccian fathers fought for the divinity of the Holy Spirit. They said that if he is not God that we can never be sanctified. Eventually they won and their doctrine was incorporated into the creed of Nicea-Constantinople “We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, with the Father and Son he is worshipped and glorified and has spoken through the prophets.” The second reading of today (1 Peter 3. 15-18) asks us to give reasons for our faith if we are asked. Thanks Capadoccian Fathers for your hard work and perseverance and for giving reasons for the faith of the Church in the Holy Spirit.

Each one of us has to be ready to give reasons for our faith. Many parents are often asked challenging questions by curious children. Great! It is a chance for them to fulfil the promise they made at the baptism of their children to be responsible for their child’s education in the faith. And for those who are able, or who are more able, how wonderful when you see Christians who can explain why the Church says what she does on some issues as euthanasia. Each and every Christian has a responsibility to be able to share the faith of the Church. We must not just leave it to others. Remember that evil happens when good people do nothing. Do I study my faith so I can give an explanation of the hope I live in?

The first reading today (Acts 8, 5-8. 14-17) )describes the work of the early Church in spreading the Gospel. Philip is in Samaria doing great things – miracles, driving out evil spirits and curing paralytics and cripples. The people were so happy that “the rejoicing rose to fever pitch”! Wow, sounds like a real party going on down there. When a person starts to listen to the Word of God similar things happen. Maybe before the person was paralysed, inactive in their faith. Sometimes vices can be paralysing like gambling or drinking – they can really cripple family life. When people live with hatred and a lack of forgiveness these are modern day evil spirits which need to be driven out. What evil spirits do we live with? Maybe the voice of pessimism “I will never change” or “I cannot get out of this mess.” Don’t think the devil only goes round with a cape and two red horns – often the bad spirit will work in our thoughts. The gospel can help us to become much stronger as people. I have met so many people in twelve years as a missionary, working in different countries, whose lives really change and undergo a “miracle” as they start to listen to the Word of God, praying with it and trying to live it out.

The Holy Spirit which Jesus promises us comes to help us in our needs. Jesus calls him the Paraclete which means helper, guide and comforter - "If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, which the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows it. But you know it, because it remains with you, and will be in you.” (See John 14:15-21) The Paraclete will comfort us, console us and of course give us strength for the battle. One main task of the Spirit in us is to help us to pray.

One Saint who understood this is St Patrick, the patron of Ireland. Once he had a vision of the Holy Spirit praying inside of him, strengthening him. He wrote about it in his Confessions (dated 450AD) “And on a second occasion I saw Him praying within me, and I was as it were, inside my own body , and I heard Him above me - that is, above my inner self. He was praying powerfully with sighs. And in the course of this I was astonished and wondering, and I pondered who it could be who was praying within me. But at the end of the prayer it was revealed to me that it was the Spirit. And so I awoke and remembered the Apostle's words: 'Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we know not how to pray as we ought. But the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for utterance.' And again: 'The Lord our advocate intercedes for us.'” How great to know the Paraclete helps us to pray! (See Romans 8, 26). Thanks St Patrick for that amazing insight and sharing your experience of the Spirit with us. May each one of us do our part to make the Spirit more known and loved.

So let us prepare our hearts each day and especially as we approach Pentecost to receive a most wonderful and precious gift, the Holy Spirit. Amen.