This sixth Sunday of Easter is the Sunday before the Ascension, and so the Holy Mother
Church and the Sacred Liturgy begins to transition from that first part of Easter in which we
celebrate the resurrection of the Lord to this second part in which our Lord ascends
into heaven and we prepare for Pentecost.
And so our Lord is speaking to us from the Last Supper and talking about his departure,
but that he will not leave us orphans, that he will give us an advocate, the Spirit of
Truth.
And that he will remain with us in spite of the fact that we will no longer see him.
We can keep in mind that our Lord makes these statements during the Last Supper before he
actually suffered and died, and so he was preparing them immediately for the scandal
of the cross.
They would be scattered.
The shepherd would be struck and the sheep would be scattered, and they would see our
Lord's mission from their human point of view sort of evaporate.
And they would only have his words to cling to in the end.
He would be gone.
He would be in the tomb for three days at least, and then afterwards, after the Ascension,
they would no longer see him at all.
And so during the Last Supper, in a particular way, our Lord is setting things in place that
they will remember.
You know, the Mass is a commemoration.
We remember what our Lord did.
And what our Lord continues to do for us through the celebration of the Sacrament, but our
Lord was setting this up so that they would have everything they needed in spite of the
fact that they would no longer see him or hear him or be able to ask him direct questions.
Everything was being established so that they would have all the tools, all the knowledge,
and the promise of all the grace in spite of the fact that the relationship was changing.
He was going through his passion, entering into his glory, and his earthly sojourn was
coming to an end.
And so as we prepare for our celebration of the Ascension, we have an opportunity to think
about the position that we find ourselves in, and it's always in this life an instance
of what we already have as opposed to what has not yet come, you know, the already and
not yet.
We're always looking forward to our own resurrection, we're always looking forward to our own glorification
at the right hand of God, and to some extent we already experience it.
The Mass is a celebration of our Lord's suffering, death, and resurrection.
The Mass is a celebration of Christ's victory.
And the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus that we receive in the Eucharist is
Jesus crucified, resurrected, and glorified at the right hand of the Father.
And when we receive Jesus in the Eucharist, we are participating in his death and resurrection,
but our bodies are also, and our souls, are being prepared for our own resurrection and
glorification on the last day.
And so our Lord wants us to be prepared.
For a kind of separation in which we will be challenged to believe even when it is difficult
to believe.
Our Lord here is preparing the apostles for the passion and death, and of course they
didn't really pass this class.
Our Lord was giving them as a teacher this sort of advanced lesson, he wanted at least
disciples, those he was preparing to be apostles, to persevere with him through Holy Thursday,
Good Friday, and Holy Saturday.
They didn't really do too good a job for the most part.
But later on, as he told them elsewhere, you know, they would come to remember what our
Lord had told them because of the Advocate, because of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ.
We sometimes refer to the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Christ.
Because it's the role of the Holy Spirit to help us remember the things that the Lord
has told us.
He is our Advocate.
He pleads with us before the Father, but he also brings to us the things that we need
to know and to remember, and the grace that we need to do what we know to be right.
And you know, the Ascension is a gift ultimately.
You know, the Ascension of our Lord into Heaven is a prerequisite for the coming of
the Holy Spirit.
Our Lord tells his Apostles that unless I go, unless I ascend to my Father, the Holy
Spirit will not come because the Father and the Son have to send the Holy Spirit.
So our Lord says there's something I realize is being lost as far as you see it, but what
you lose is also lost.
That's right.
So your gain.
And it's really not a loss in the end, because Jesus remains with us.
He does keep his promise, I will be with you always, even until the end of the world.
He will not leave us orphans, and he has not left us orphans.
But it's a mysterious thing.
It's the working of the Holy Spirit.
That's why before the consecration and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, at least in the
Western Rite, the priest invokes the Holy Spirit over the gifts.
When the priest puts his hands over the gifts, the Holy Spirit comes.
When the priest puts his hands over the gifts, that's the invocation of the Holy Spirit.
And in the Eastern Rites, actually, it's even more explicit.
In some of the Eastern Rites, the priest actually waves his hands like the wings of a dove over
the gifts, because this is the presence of Jesus sacramentally, mystically, by means
of this sign and veil of the Eucharist, is the work of the Holy Spirit.
It's something that we see.
We see it by way of sign, the bread and the wine, but we know it to be the body, blood,
soul, and divinity of our Lord, because he's told us that.
And we hear the words of consecration.
We know these are Jesus' words.
We know they are true.
And the Holy Spirit reminds us of these words and convicts us of their truth.
And the Holy Spirit dwells within us, God willing, if we're in the state of grace.
And we have the grace to believe.
And we have the grace to know.
That Jesus is present, and that the grace of God is with us.
This is, for example, one of the reasons why the Fathers, I think St. Augustine talks about
Mary Magdalene at the tomb of Jesus on the day of the resurrection, and she's running
around, trying to find our Lord, and she's beside herself, because Jesus is nowhere to
be found.
And, of course, she's looking for a dead body.
Jesus has died.
And she doesn't expect him to rise from the dead.
Not because our Lord didn't tell her, but because, again, they had this problem of the
Spirit had not yet come, and the faith of our Lord's disciples was weak.
And so Mary's looking around for our Lord's dead body, and the angels tell her that he's
risen, you know, that she should have realized that he wouldn't be there, he'd risen just
as he said.
And Mary Magdalene turns around from the tomb and walks out as though, you know, she hadn't
seen angels.
You'd kind of think it would be an extraordinary thing to see angels, and you'd be quite impressed
and stupefied by witnessing an apparition of angels and having them tell you the answer
to your question.
Yet Mary Magdalene didn't seem to be fazed at all.
She just ran out of the tomb and then mistook our Lord in the garden as the gardener.
And when our Lord revealed himself to Mary by calling out her name, he said, do not be
afraid.
Do not touch me.
I have not yet ascended to my Father.
And St. Augustine interprets this passion as saying that our Lord deprived her of her
desire, which was to verify that he was really risen and that he was really present by her
touch because he wanted her to have a deeper faith.
And he said, you know, I have not yet ascended to my Father.
Interpretation there is that once he had ascended to his Father, he had not yet ascended to
the Father and she would no longer be able to see him with her eyes, then she would be
able to live the way that he wanted her to live, which is by faith.
What he really wanted all that time of all his disciples was that they would listen to
what he said and remember it and put it into practice.
You know, as he says in a number of different ways, you know, blessed are they who hear
the word of God and keep it.
You know, those who hear the word of God and keep it are my brother, sister, and mother.
I mean, that's what he really wants.
It's what he's always wanted.
If you love me, keep my commandments.
He says that in today's gospel, if you love me, you will keep my commandments and I will
ask the Father and he will give you another advocate to be with you always, the Spirit
of truth, whom the world cannot accept because it neither sees nor knows him.
We don't see or know the Holy Spirit in the way that we, you know, we see and know each
other, but we do know he's present because our Lord has promised him.
And through the Spirit, we are given the conviction of the truth.
So in this world today in which we have all kinds of images to deal with through whatever,
television, the internet, you know, we're bombarded with information all the time and
there are many voices.
We have to sort of, we have to cling to the voice, to the words of Jesus.
We have to cling to the words of Jesus.
That's what we do in the Eucharist.
We cling to the words of Jesus.
We see bread and wine, but we know it to be the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus
because of his words.
And that's what we have to do throughout all of our spiritual life is cling to the words
of our Lord even when people are telling us something different, especially of course
when people are telling us something different.
We always have to go back to that.
And that's the reason, that's the difference between vice, virtue and vice.
We act virtuously when, when the voice of Jesus is stronger, louder, and, and we act
on it more quickly.
We act virtuously when we do that.
When we, when we start listening to somebody else or something else, the world of flesh
or the devil, and we hear it over and over again and we don't drown it out by our own
efforts to, you know, reject it.
Eventually it gets the better of us.
The better of us and, and, and we follow the wrong voice.
So our Lord will ascend into heaven on Holy Thursday as we celebrate this liturgically
because he loves us.
And he leaves us in this state in which we have to practice faith because he wants us
to, um, to become perfect.
And in fact, we, sometimes we don't feel this way, but in fact our Lord has given us everything
we need.
We, we sometimes think we would be better off if he would just appear to us and tell
us whatever we need to, we think we need to know, but we really don't need that.
What we need is to cling to the words he's already given us.
And then if we do that, God, you know, will take care of us sometimes in extraordinary
ways.
But, um, if we cling to the ordinary, then, then we will, um, we'll be fine because our
Lord promises, whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me.
And whoever loves me will be loved by my father and I will love him and reveal myself to him.
That's our Lord's promise.
He reveals himself to those who love him, to those who cling to his words and have united
themselves to the advocate that he has promised, the Holy Spirit who will come on Pentecost.
We pray for the coming of the Lord and of his spirit, the spirit and the bride say come,
come Lord Jesus.
Um, when we receive that grace, we will know that, that all things have been brought to
fulfillment because our Lord has fulfilled his promises.
Amen.
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Amen.