Saint Gertrude Parish - Lasne

Homily of Bishop Vincenzo Paglia*

6th Sunday of Easter

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Acts 8.5-8.14-17; Psa 65; 1 Pt 3,15-18; In 14.15-21.

In this time when we continually live the mystery of Easter, the Holy Liturgy gathers us in prayer so that we may prepare ourselves to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, just as the apostles did. The passage from the Acts of the Apostles that we heard tells us of Peter and John who went down to Samaria among those who had embraced the Gospel, in order to invoke the Holy Spirit upon them: “For the Spirit had not yet come upon any of them; they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then Peter and John laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit” (Acts 8:16-17). This is the first witness of what we call “confirmation.” Today, the Word of God has descended among us, just as it did for Peter and John, to prepare our hearts to receive this wondrous gift. Next Sunday we will celebrate the Ascension of Jesus into heaven. From that day on, the disciples never saw with their own eyes the Master they had followed, listened to, and been touched by for three years. The Gospel, continuing last Sunday's reading, takes us back to the evening of the Last Supper, when Jesus spoke of his departure and immediately saw their sorrow. His words instantly became one of consolation and hope; these men, whom he had so painstakingly kept together, were his, they belonged to him. He did not want them to be lost.

He was going to "leave." And it wasn't a given that they would continue to stay together; and it wasn't a given that, even if they did stay together, they would continue to proclaim the Gospel to the ends of the earth. "I will not leave you orphans; I will come back to you," Jesus said.

Surely, what dominated Jesus' thoughts was his concern for the future of this small group he had gathered. A concern he must have had from the beginning, but which, that evening, appeared in all its clarity and in its drama as well. It was from this feeling, which was not without dramatic overtones, that the words he spoke at the beginning of the Last Supper came: "I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you." His desire to meet the disciples was embodied in the wish to entrust to them his testament, this legacy that would endure through time. This Last Supper was the culmination of such a passing of instructions. And every Sunday liturgy allows us to relive this same moment, too. Moreover, in this Last Supper were already present all the Holy Liturgies that would be celebrated throughout the world and in all times. Right up to the one we celebrate today. It is no coincidence that Jesus, addressing his Father, does not pray only for his small group of disciples, but also "for those who will accept their word and believe in me" (Jn 17:20).

Here is a facet of our spirituality and pastoral practice that we must rediscover more clearly: concern for the future of our communities. To be disciples of the Lord, it is not enough to allow ourselves to be absorbed by the immediate demands of daily work. In our present, it is the future we desire that we must already be cultivating. This is what Jesus teaches us that evening. Before him is a small, vulnerable group of people; he looks at them with affection and dreams of all humanity gathered around that table. Certainly, it is naive to entrust the Gospel as an inheritance to such humble hands. But it is the naiveté of God who trusts and places his faith in the little ones, the weak.

Jesus said he would never leave them alone, like abandoned orphans. This term is heavily connoted by the Old Testament, where the orphan is the prototype of someone at the mercy of the powerful, someone against whom many injustices are committed. Jesus will not leave them defenseless. And he announces to them the nearness of a "comforter" (literally, a "helper") who is the "Spirit of truth." The term "helper," applied to the Holy Spirit, means "the one who helps in all circumstances," especially in the most difficult times. As long as he was among his followers, Jesus himself helped, taught, and defended them. "While I was with them, I kept them faithful to your name, which you gave me. I watched over them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined for destruction" (John 17:12), Jesus says in his prayer to the Father. From now on, it will be the Spirit who provides this constant help. He—Jesus said—will be with you forever. We need the Spirit of Jesus, who is not found in the world; he is a Spirit whom the world neither sees nor knows; he is foreign to the logic of this world, to the ideologies of lies, to those perverse systems that oppress people and perpetuate violence. But the Spirit of Jesus is also foreign to many of those other spirits that possess our hearts and our minds.

I am referring to the spirit of indifference, the spirit of self-love, the spirit of pride, enmity, envy, lies, and arrogance. And how many others! To speak of spirits, it is not necessary to resort to an old demonology, which is then only very quickly repressed by our rationalism, nor to believe, with disconcerting ease, in demonic possessions. Rather, it is a matter of recognizing more realistically that there are indeed many evil spirits in circulation. But these are not bizarre spirits. They are clothed in normality. Exaggerations are merely a clever expedient for living in peace. In reality, each of us should recognize that we are possessed and that we live in peace with our evil spirits without unduly upsetting them. They are the ones who cause harm, who multiply violence, isolation, hostility, and war. All of these things stem from hearts that have become sad and spiteful. Let's not look for exceptional cases. Certainly, there is cause for concern, but these are merely the tip of a much larger picture. What makes our lives truly hellish are these spirits of ordinary selfishness that subjugate our hearts and distort our actions.

This is why we still need Pentecost today. We need the Spirit of the Lord to descend and shake the rigid, closed walls of our hearts with a spiritual earthquake; we need a new flame to rest upon each of us, shaking off laziness and fear. At the dawn of the third millennium, we are called to relive, for ourselves and for the world, the miracle of the first Pentecost that transformed the lives of the disciples.

But where does the miracle of Pentecost begin? It's not complicated. This miracle is rooted in the love of Jesus, in the love for the Gospel. It is this love that is the first small flame that rests upon the heads of the disciples and warms their hearts. Love for Jesus is therefore the beginning of every Christian religious experience. During the Last Supper, addressing his disciples, Jesus said to them, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." This is the first time in the Gospel that Jesus asks his followers to love him.

Until then, he had asked them to love the Father, the poor, the lowly, or to love one another. And now, shortly before dying, he asks them to love him. Certainly, this is a request for affection, but love for Jesus doesn't stop with him; it overflows abundantly onto all of us. As Jesus says, "Whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them." This small flame of love that the Spirit places in the heart of each of us is the inner strength that sustains us along life's journey and makes us grow in the image of the Lord Jesus.

It is energy that renews the world.

Vincenzo Paglia is Bishop of Terni-Narni-Amelia, spiritual advisor to the Community of Sant'Egidio, president of the Episcopal Conference of Umbria and president of the Catholic Biblical Federation.