6th Sunday of Easter (Year A) - 14 May
14th May 2023
6th Sunday of Easter (Year A) - 14 May
“Cast your care upon God for you are His and He will not forget you. Do not think that He is leaving you alone, for that would be to wrong Him.” - St John of the Cross
A reflection on today's Gospel by the Venerable Archbishop Fulton J Sheen:
"Adam’s body was made when God breathed the spirit of life into him. Israel’s tabernacle and temple had to be built before the Shekinah and the glory of God came to take possession of it; so there had to be a renovation within man as the condition of God’s own Spirit dwelling there. With the coming of Christ, the fulfilment of the prophecy of Ezechiel began to take place. The Spirit had played a very important role in His life. John the Baptist had foretold two things about Christ: first, that He was the Lamb of God and would take away the sins of the world; and the other, that He would baptise His disciples with the Holy Spirit and with fire. The shedding of the blood was for the sinful; the gift of the Spirit was for His obedient and loving followers. When Our Lord was baptised in the Jordan, the Holy Spirit came upon Him. He was baptised in the Spirit; but He must suffer before giving that Spirit to others. That is why, the night when His Passion began, He spoke most profoundly of the Spirit.
"He began by telling them that His death would happen on the following day; they would see Him no longer with eyes of the flesh. A little more time must pass, that is to say, the interval between His death and His Resurrection when they would see Him glorified with their bodily eyes. His loss, He assured them, would be compensated for by a greater blessing than His presence in the flesh.
"At present, they had sadness because they would no longer see Him in the flesh, but their joy would come through a spiritual quickening, and that joy would have a permanent character about it which the world could not take away.
"The nature of this ultimate joy that was to be theirs, the Saviour explained in terms of the Comforter or Paraclete whom He would send. There would be another Comforter, or 'Another to befriend them.' 'Another' is not a difference in quality, but rather a distinction of persons. He had been their Comforter; He was at their side; He had been One with them and in His Presence they had gained strength and courage; but their trouble was that He was going. He now promised them another Comforter or Advocate. As He would be the Advocate with God in heaven, so the Spirit dwelling within them would plead the cause of God on earth and be their Advocate. The Divine secret that He gave was that their loss would now have the greater blessing of the coming of the Spirit. The Father had given a twofold revelation of Himself; the Son was His image walking among men, reminding them of the Divine original and also the Model to which they were to be restored. In the Spirit, the Father and the Son would send forth a Divine Power, Who would dwell within them and make of their bodies a temple.
"It was better that He go away, for His return to the Father was the condition of the coming of the Spirit. If He remained among them, He would have been only an example to be copied; if He left and sent the Spirit, He would be a veritable life to be lived. The return of His human nature in glory to heaven was a necessary preliminary to the mission of the Spirit. His going would not be a loss but a gain. As the fall of the first man was the fall of his descendants, so the Ascension of the Son of Man would be the ascension of all who were grafted unto Him. His atoning death was the condition of receiving the Spirit of God. If He did not go away, that is to say, unless He died, nothing would be done; the Jews would remain as they were, the heathens would remain in their blindness, and all would be under sin and death. The corporal presence had to be removed in order that the spiritual presence might take its place. His continued presence on earth would have meant a localised presence; the descending of the Spirit would mean that He could be in the midst of all men who would be incorporated unto Him.
"The indwelling of the Spirit would mean more than His physical presence among them. So long as Our Lord was with them on earth, His influence was from without inward; but when He would send the Spirit, His influence would radiate from without; those who possessed it would have the Spirit of Christ Jesus on earth.
"There would be a twofold glorification of Himself: the one by the Father; the other by the Spirit; the one would take place in heaven, and the other on earth. By the one, He is glorified in God Himself, and by the other, He is glorified in all who believe in Him. He would be glorified when His human nature would be seated at the right hand of the Father. But this heavenly spiritual glory could not be truly apprehended unless He sent the Spirit Who reveals the glory of Christ in them by dwelling and working within. Though they knew Christ by the flesh, they are now reassured that they would know Him so no longer.
"Obedience was described as the necessary condition of receiving the Spirit. The Spirit came to Christ in the Jordan after His thirty years of obedience to His Heavenly Father and to His foster father Joseph and His mother. His second act of obedience was accepting the command of the Father to bear the Cross in response to the Divine ‘must.’ It was only after obedience that the Spirit would be given to the Apostles. As He sent His Spirit because of His obedience to His Father, so His believers would receive the Spirit through obedience to Him. God dwelt in the temple of Jerusalem because they obeyed His instruction in building it. In the last two chapters of Exodus, eighteen times the expression had been made that all was done as the Lord had commanded. So now as Our Blessed Lord prepared to make human bodies the temples of His Holy Spirit, He too laid down the same condition that they obey His commandments." (Life of Christ)
Invocation of the Holy Spirit Prayer
Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created. And You shall renew the face of the earth. O God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever enjoy His consolations, Through Christ Our Lord, Amen. 💖💐🙏
Mother's Day
In Australia this Sunday we celebrate Mother's Day. May God bless all mothers.
Prayer for Mothers
Loving God, thank you for all the mothers in the world. Bless them so that they may always give life and nourishment to their children through their firm faith, generous and selfless love, good example and constant concern for their bodily and spiritual health. Grant that we, their children, may honour them always with a spirit of profound love, respect and thanksgiving. Grant this through Christ our Lord. Amen. 💖💐🙏
Food for thought
A mother holds a high place of importance on earth. She has a unique role to play in God’s creative miracle. She provides the dwelling for the immortal soul created by God in the form of her baby’s tiny body that she bears and nourishes within herself. Only a human mother can do this. Motherhood then becomes a kind of priesthood. She brings God to man by preparing the flesh in which the soul will be implanted; she brings man to God in offering the child back again to the Creator. A mother is God’s great co-operator.