THE PHYSICS OF PENTECOST

This morning  our Father Maximilian at our community mass gave a homily that I found so interesting that I asked him if I might use it as my post for Pentecost. And so it is with gratitude that I present his words hoping that you will find them as moving as I did.

When I was working as an engineer at the Naval facility in White Oak, MD, a young man in his early 20’s came to work in my department for three months. I noticed not only how diligent he was at his work, but also how attentive he was to the needs of the other employees. He was always ready and willing to lend a helping hand and go the extra mile. He had genuine goodwill. I could tell that he was brought up well, and, of course, I assumed that he was a practicing Christian. 

One day, I met him at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. He was

there for choir practice. He sang in the choir. It didn’t surprise me. But when I spoke to him, I was surprised by what he said. 

He told me that, although he sang in the church choir, he didn’t believe in God. 

When he said that, I immediately recalled something that my father said to me when I was a child, at a time when I was going through a period of doubt. I told my father that I didn’t think that I believed in God anymore. He said to me, “That’s OK. God believes in you.” 

That was one of the most powerful things that was ever said to me. From that, I learned that God works through our goodwill. We may have strong doubts about God, but our goodwill is proof that God’s Spirit is at work in us. Even when we are having difficulty giving assent with our minds, we give assent with our hearts through our goodwill. 

I shared this thought with that young man. I also shared a thought about fire and combustion, the two of us being engineers. I said that when we light a candle, we tend to think of the flame as being transferred from the lighter to the candle wick. But that is not what happens. 

The photons which make up the flame coming from the lighter provide heat to the

candle wick which triggers a combustion reaction from within the candle wick itself, and the flame that you see coming from the candle wick does not consist of photons transferred from the lighter, but photons that were already right within the wick bound up in the proton-electron bonds in the molecules of the wick, and which become released as the combustion proceeds. 

What has happened is that something which is already there is released not only to be seen but also, if allowed, to trigger combustion in other things around it. The presence of those spiritual photons within him has a divine origin. 

The photons of spiritual life - of spiritual light - were already there in him waiting for the fire of the Holy Spirit to trigger the combustion of religious fervor so that they could be released into the world to contribute to the divine light and divine life in the world. 

The divine life is already there in potency; it just has to be actualized. This divine light is hidden within every person; it just needs to be released by the combustion of faith activated by the Holy Spirit. Although we do not activate the combustion of faith in another person, our words of witness and our acts of loving service can be the occasion in which the Holy Spirit ignites the combustion of faith in another person.

I hope that my words served as such an occasion for that young man. After his three-month period in my department, I didn’t have any more contact with him, but I feel confident that the Lord had continued to work through his goodwill and that he eventually came to the point of assent with his mind as well. 

May the combustion of faith which burns in our hearts burn with ever greater intensity with the fire of love, so that, through the light that comes from the combustion of faith, hope, and love within each of us, help to serve daily as the occasion for the igniting of the combustion of faith, hope, and love in people around us!

STRENGTH IN THE SPIRIT

 This week’s post builds on a New Testament verb that I've reflected on before. I’m posting again an old homily with a couple of revisions and insertions, hoping that you might find it useful.

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In the middle of today’s first reading we see  Paul and Silas returning to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch. This is remarkable because at the beginning of the reading  Paul has been stoned and left for dead by a mob in Lystra. Luke explains to us the reason why they are returning to those hostile towns: 

After Paul and Barnabas had proclaimed the good news to [Derbe] and made a considerable number of disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch. They strengthened the spirits of the disciples…” (Acts 14:21). They returned to strengthen the hearts of their brothers and sisters.

The verb “to strengthen” is a form of sterizo, “to make something more firm, solid.”  It’s the root of our word “steroids.” We know that body-builders take steroids to "bulk up" their bodies, and some professional athletes us them illegally to help build up muscle tissue and increase body mass. I’d like to look briefly at how the root-word sterizo is used in the New Testament. Three examples offer us plenty of food for meditation.

First, we’ve already seen the verb used in describing Paul and Silas in the passage quoted above “strengthening the hearts” of the Christians in Lystra, Iconium and Antioch.

 A second  use of our verb occurs in the first chapter of the letter to the Romans. Paul writes:

"For I long to see you, that I may share with you some spiritual gift so that you may be strengthened (sterizo)..."

Then, in the First Letter to the Thessalonians he tells the church there: 
“we decided to remain alone in Athens, and sent Timothy, our brother and co-worker, to strengthen (sterizo)… you in your faith, so that no one be disturbed in these afflictions.” 

In each of these three passages, there is also a  parallel verb that expands on the idea of sterizo, “strengthening.”  In each of these passages we find the verb parakaleo. Among its many meanings we find “to encourage, exhort.” It gives us our word “paraclete.”   

On our first passage we read “they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch. They strengthened (sterizo) the spirits of the disciples and encouraged (parakaleo) them to continue in the faith,saying ‘It is through many persecutions that we must enter the Kingdom of God’.” (Acts 14:21-22).

The passage from Romans reads, more fully, “For I long to see you, that I may share with you some spiritual gift so that you may be strengthened (sterizo), that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged (parakaleo) by one another’s faith, yours and mine (Rom 1:11-12) 

Our third quotation reads, again more fully: we decided to remain alone in Athens, and sent Timothy, our brother and co-worker, to strengthen (sterizo) and encourage (parakaleo)  you in your faith, so that no one be disturbed in these afflictions (1 Thess. 3:1-3)”

So, we see how the first Christians “built up” one another: by encouraging one another to bear up under trials and persecutions.

Thus, we have this special pair of verbs: First, sterizo expresses the first Christians’ sense of strengthening one another, of “bulking one another up.  And second, that beautiful Pentecost verb parakaleo, that tells us how they strengthened one another by encouraging each other,  by being “paracletes” to their brothers & sisters. The first Christian  churches, you could say,  were communities on steroids!

Imagine for a moment a monastery on steroids, in which the members strengthen one another and build up one another by  their words and deeds of mutual encouragement.
Maybe sterizo and parakaleo can suggest a vision for us as we enter a new era in our community's history: picture Newark Abbey bulked up on steroids!

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Think about your role within your family, community, workplace and so forth. Does your presence make that group stronger? Are you a source of

CATCHING THE SPIRIT

PHILIP AND THE ETHIOPIAN

A rather well-known passage from Acts was the first reading for mass recently. The story of Philip’s encounter with the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8:26-40. It is Luke the consummate story-teller at his best. There are angels, lots of physical action, and a high-ranking and exotic personage who is open to the movement of the Spirit. Philip is portrayed in the trappings of the prophet Elijah who was addressed by an angel in 2 Kgs 1:15, who ran alongside the chariot of a powerful person in 1 Kgs 18:46, and was carried from place to place by the Spirit in 1 Kgs 18:12. The text is certainly worth a close reading:

Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, ‘Get up and go towards the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.’ (This is a wilderness road.) So he got up and went. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. Then the Spirit said to Philip, ‘Go over to this chariot and join it.’ So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ He replied, ‘How can I, unless someone guides me?’ And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him. Now the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this: ‘Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth. In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth.’ The eunuch asked Philip, ‘About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?’ Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus. As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the eunuch said, ‘Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?’ He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he was passing through the region, he proclaimed the good news to all the towns until he came to Caesarea. (Acts 8:26-40)

THE GOSPEL BREAKS OUT

You may know that the Acts of the Apostles recounts the growth and spread of the early church, especially under Peter and Paul. It tells how the Christian faith burst out of the confines of Jerusalem and began to spread to Samaria and nearby areas and then, in ever-widening circles, beyond Greece and even Rome itself and beyond. So then, where does the account of the baptism of the Ethiopian court official fit into this scheme?

The eunuch is returning from worshiping in Jerusalem and is reading the prophet Isaiah. So if he is not a Jew he is certainly one of those from far-off lands that the prophets predicted would come to worship the Lord at the temple in the great in-gathering of the nations:

At that time I will change the speech of the peoples to a pure speech, that all of them may call on the name of the Lord and serve him with one accord. From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia my suppliants, my scattered ones, shall bring my offering. (Zeph 3:9-10)

Incidentally, as a eunuch he would have been barred from full participation in temple worship and even in the Jewish community. But here he is being baptized and welcomed into the Christian communion. The movement seems to be toward Jerusalem rather than away from it.

Think of how before a wave breaks on the shore the water recedes as the next wave gathers itself up to then crash with full force onto the beach. The story of the Ethiopian is like that final drawing back of the tide before the wave breaks, the last Jerusalem-centered movement before the great expansion of the gospel message begins.

The very next verse following this episode introduces us to the key player in the spread of the Gospel to the gentiles: “Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus” (Acts 9:1-2). With the conversion if Saul the waves are about to begin to burst outward in earnest, breaking onto the non-Jewish world.

Indeed, Luke will immediately devote chapters 10-12 to recounting in great detail the conversion of the pagan Cornelius, an event which he clearly considers to be the great turning point since it is the conversion of the first gentile to the faith.

CHASING THE SPIRIT

I found an interesting lesson for myself in the story of the baptism of the Ethiopian official. Remember, first of all, that, as in the rest of Acts, the Holy Spirit is behind every action: “Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, ‘Get up and go towards the south,’” “Then the Spirit said to Philip, ‘Go and catch up with that chariot,’” and “When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away.”

These dramatic interventions clearly show Luke’s fundamental conviction that “the mission is not first of all a result of human enterprise but of the Spirit’s impulse. The Christian missionaries are constantly trying to keep up with God’s action” (Luke T. Johnson, The Acts of the Apostles, 160) . We have in the story of the Ethiopian official a literal example of "trying to keep up with God's action: "The Spirit told Philip, "Go and join that chariot," and poor Philip had to run to catch up with it! The text makes it clear that he was actually jogging alongside the chariot for awhile listening to the Ethiopian reading the scripture aloud.

I don’t know about you, but there are periods when I get a little winded “trying to keep up with God’s action”. When my careful plans go haywire or events get beyond my control, I have to run to catch up with the work of the Spirit. When things are clearly no longer going according to my own plan I have to hustle to join in the plan that God has in mind.

The root of the word "spirit" in both Greek and Latin is the word for "breath, wind." It sounds a little paradoxical but chasing the Spirit can leave you winded sometimes. When you start to get short of breath trying to keep up with the Spirit's action in your life you may want to say a quick prayer to Saint Philip, who must be, after all, the patron saint of joggers.
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LEARNING FROM THE WOMEN

THE PROBLEM

Easter seems like a lot of hollow words sometimes -- Christ conquering sin and death and so forth. It’s sort of happy, certainly, but also vague. It’s not terribly real; it’s about Christ, but not about me. It doesn’t feel as if it’s part of my world. I’d like to offer a perspective that I’ve found helpful: Experience the Easter event through the eyes of the women

A PERSPECTIVE:

In Luke's gospel there are several women who are part of Jesus' entourage, traveling with him from Galilee ministering to his needs, and remaining at his side right through the fateful journey up to Jerusalem. They watch him suffer and die on the cross, and follow his corpse to the tomb to see that it is properly taken care of.

They are his personal friends, and have committed their lives to him. When they come to the tomb that Sunday morning with spices to finish anointing the body, they are grieving terribly -- this was their personal friend who had died. This is nothing vague for them, because Jesus is not vague or distant. And this is the key: Jesus is a real person to them, who has made a difference in their lives. 

Has Jesus ever made a difference in your life? What about the way you talk to Him or relate to Him? Does he affect the way you spend your money or use your possessions? Have his words ever touched you and changed you? Have you allowed Jesus to take control of your life?

These women are, according to all four gospels, the first witnesses to the empty tomb. The fact that the body is not there doesn't of itself lead to faith. Stand next to the holy women as things seem to be going from bad to worse for them. Not only is Jesus dead, but now they can't find his body to anoint it. Have you ever stood perplexed in front of some event in your life that makes no sense? A serious illness, say, or a death, or a divorce? What do you do then? Well, stay with the women and watch what happens next.

REMEMBERING YOUR FRIEND

In Mark's account, two men appear and say to them "You need not be amazed! You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth whom they crucified. He has been raised up. He is not here." Then the announcement takes on the tone of a rebuke: Why are you looking among the dead for one who is alive? He is not here. He is risen. Remember what he said to you while he was in Galilee." This is not just a mechanical bringing to mind, for the women it is a form of presence of their friend, and they do remember, and they come to belief.

Then the empty tomb is transformed from an unsettling puzzle to a source of consolation; it suddenly makes sense -- it's what Jesus promised, it has a "shape." No matter what it looks like at the moment, said Jesus, this is God's victory plan!

Remember what he said to you. When things look bleak, when you keep trying and nothing works, when you feel lost in the wilderness, remember what he said to you: "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give your rest." "For man it is impossible, but nothing is impossible for God." "I will not leave you orphans."

Easter is the time to look at an empty tomb in your life and remember. Not just a mechanical calling to mind, but a vibrant, life-affirming "Aha!" kind of remembering. Stand with the women at the empty tomb on Easter morning and remember what your friend promised to you.

Have a Blessed Easter season!

COMPETING VOICES

This Sunday is called "Good Shepherd Sunday" because all the readings present the figure of Jesus as the Good Shepherd. 

In order to understand the few gospel verses given below, let
me offer a little bit of background.

 At the time of Jesus, shepherds would bring their flocks in the evening into a common corral or “sheepfold.“ This was constructed of stone walls and one opening. This opening would either be equipped with a gate or a shepherd would lie down across the opening at night. In the morning each shepherd would come to get his flock. He would stand at the opening and call his sheep, even by name. They would recognize the sound of his voice and come to follow him out to pasture. The other sheep in the sheepfold would not follow because they didn’t recognize that shepherd‘s voice.

Here are some verses from today’s gospel:

The gatekeeper opens the gate for the shepherd. “The keeper opens it for him, and the sheep hear his voice, as the shepherd calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has driven out all his own, he walks ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they recognize his voice. But they will not follow a stranger; they will run away from him because they do not recognize the voice of strangers. (Jn 10: )

This image is about listening to the right voice and ignoring any other voices. Remember that Jesus calls himself the “Good Shepherd,“ in contrast to the “Bad Shepherds“ that the Jews had experienced. 

LISTEN TO THE RIGHT VOICE

There are bad shepherds calling to us all the time, promising pleasure, wealth, power, prestige, and so on. Jesus warns us not to listen to those voices, because they lead us not to good pastures but to danger and unhappiness.

The oration in the old breviary for this Sunday we have This phrase: “Lord, give us minds open to hearing your voice.“

What is the voice of the good Shepherd asking of you today? What does it mean for you to follow him? The answer is different for each of us, but we know that it will mean following our Savior with a life of meekness, generosity, humility, and self-sacrificing love. Our Good Shepherd warns us, though, about those other voices that call to us and that seem to offer much more pleasant alternatives than the one that Jesus offers.

This Sunday offers a great opportunity for us to pray to our Good Shepherd, asking for the gift of a listening heart to hear his voice, and a strong will so that we can follow it faithfully.

While you're at it, how about praying for all those whom Christ is calling to the priesthood or the religious life?

Jesus, our Shepherd, help us to listen to your voice!

JESUS IN THE STORM

My apologies.  A computer issue kept me from posting this on Saturday. The gospel reading on  Saturday prompted me to share this chapter from my book Faces of Easter.  

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Ever see a girl who looks like a storm cloud? That’s Mina as we sit down side by side on a bench in a quiet corner of St. Augustine’s church after mass. Half a minute of quiet, then the cloud bursts open in a flood of tears and words. Nothing to do but wait out the storm.

“My family is moving to Illinois at the end of June... That means I have to leave all my friends and everything… I’ll be in this whole new place: a new house, a sophomore in a new school where I don’t know anybody.”

“Scary, huh?” I ask. My heart goes out to her. She wipes tears with the heels of her hands, and tries not to sob.

“Yeah. Everything will be different. I grew up here, so I have a pretty good idea of how things work -- I was even gonna try out for softball next spring, and stuff like that. But now,” she shakes her black curls “I have no idea what’s gonna happen.” She turns and looks at me; she’s so young and seems so frail -- afraid of the storm clouds gathering in front of her.

Remembering the gospel story from my morning meditation, I start to picture the two of ussitting side by side in a boat at night on the Sea of Galilee, in the midst of a raging storm. Foaming waves seem about to swamp the boat. Then she shouts, “What’s that?” Peering into the gloom, I see a gray form slowly gliding toward us over the water, but I can’t figure out what this strange figure is that is emerging out of the darkness. It takes on a menacing, human shape.  I panic.

Then the figure calls out in a strong, soothing voice, “It is I! Do not be afraid!”

And, to our surprise, he walks right past us; a moment later the boat glides smoothly onto a sandy shore, landing Mina and me safely back in our pew in the rear of St. Augustine’s church.

Mina is staring at me quizzically.

“Oh! Sorry, Mina! I was just remembering a time when I was scared, the way you are now.” The two of us sit quietly, each involved in our own thoughts.

Over the years I’ve gotten a little better at recognizing Christ’s presence more quickly in the midst of life’s storms, and hearing his voice in the roar of the winds: “It is I, do not be afraid!” 

But a quick look at my young boatmate reminds me that she is still a beginner when it comes to dealing with frightening lightning storms and phantom figures that glide toward you on waves, saying “It is I, do not be afraid!”

I try to offer her some encouraging words myself: “Okay, Mina, so what are some things you can do that might make moving to Illinois a little less scary?” I try to make my voice sound strong and soothing and, maybe, well, wise.

It’s not the voice of Jesus, I admit, but it will do for now.

Reflection

A Christian tries to develop a paschal outlook on life, approaching every difficult situation with the confident conviction that the risen Lord is mysteriously present and active there, bringing about something new and good. Can you think of a time in your own life, or in the life of someone close to you, when you experienced new life arising from some painful situation?

MAGDALENE'S MISTAKE

MARY MAGDALENE'S MYOPIA

Mary Magdalene stood outside the tomb weeping, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “Because they have taken away my Lord and I do not know where they have laid him.”

Saying this she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom do you seek?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him and I will take him away.

 (Jn 20:11-15)

I was giving this text a lot of thought and prayer earlier this week. What made Mary suddenly turn around before the two angels could even deliver their message? Did she sense a presence behind her? St. John Chrysostom suggests that the two angels suddenly caught sight of the Risen Lord standing behind Mary and she read their faces and so turned to see what they were looking at.

 

She may have turned only partly around, because v.16 tells us that when Jesus called her by name, “She turned and said to him, ‘Rabouni.’”   

But the phrase that really caught my interest came when she first turned and saw this figure standing there “but she did not know that it was Jesus.”

Maybe her eyes were filled with tears, or maybe she was so overwhelmed with grief that she wasn’t really thinking straight. And she certainly had no concept of a “risen Jesus” - Judaism had no such concept nor any vocabulary to express it, so she was not prepared to see a “risen Lord.”

In addition, there are other places in the Easter narratives where other people don’t recognize Jesus either ( e.g. the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, and the disciples out fishing when Jesus calls to them from the shore), which indicates that there was now something different about his appearance. So we can’t blame poor Magdalene for mistaking Jesus for the gardener. “She did not know it was Jesus.”

SO, WHAT'S YOUR EXCUSE?

But what about you and me? We have the gospel accounts along with the hindsight and the insights of two millennia of Christian tradition, all preparing us to recognize Christ in every person we meet. But the same thing happens to you and me as happened to Magdalene: we don’t know that it is Jesus standing before us when he comes.

I’ve learned that He often comes in the guise of the person who puts their umbrella into the spokes of my life’s bicycle: he phones at an inconvenient hour looking for someone to talk to, he needs help pouring cereal into his bowl because his Alzheimer’s is bad this morning, he is a homeless woman asking for a handout on the sidewalk down the hill from the monastery. I need to be on the watch all the time for these “appearances” of the Risen Lord so that I don’t make the same mistake that Magdalene made when “she did not know that it was Jesus.”

"She did not know it was Jesus."

We’re about to start classes on Monday after a two-week Easter break. There are lots of terrific kids who I’ll be delighted to see after a two-week vacation; I’ll see Jesus in them right way and enjoy His presence. But will I be willing and able to recognize the same Jesus when he starts acting out his adolescent anger in class because he doesn’t know what else to do with it, or when he starts chatting with his classmate while he’s supposed to be taking notes in class? That will be the test for me.

Let’s pray to the Risen Jesus that He’ll give each of us the eyes of Easter Faith, that he’ll open our eyes to see His presence in every person and every circumstance.