13C19.   1 Kings 19:16b, 19-21.   As a prophet, Elijah is the spokesperson and messenger of God.  God tells Elijah to anoint Elisha. That anointing is not recorded here but rather Elijah invests Elisha with the power to be a prophet by throwing his own special cloak of one who is a prophet over Elisha, as our priests who are to receive Holy Orders are invested with the priests’ chasuble and stole.  According to the commentaries I have read, Elisha drove one yoke of oxen while eleven servants drove the other eleven.  In those times the prophets were readily recognized, though not always obeyed.  When Elisha kisses his parents goodbye, they would have recognized the seriousness of his calling and not have tried to interfere with it.  By slaughtering the oxen and giving the meat to his people to eat, Elisha was terminating his means and future in farming as a way of finalizing his goodbye, completing the fullness of his acceptance of God’s calling.

Luke 9:51-62.  “When the days for Jesus’ being taken up were fulfilled, he resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem.”  As with Elisha, Jesus had already declared that he had left his family in Nazareth to proclaim the kingdom of God, when in Luke 8:21b, he said, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and act on it.” I believe that the words at the beginning of this reading that say, “When the days  for his being taken up were fulfilled,” means that he had accomplished what he want to do outside of Jerusalem and now must make his way to Jerusalem to fulfill the prophecy he had just made earlier in Luke 9:22 when, “He said, ‘ the Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised.’”

The Jews in Jerusalem and those in Samaria had rejected one another’s claims to being Jews and reviled one another as being charlatans or fake Jews.  Jesus rejected the disciples request for vengeance because he had come to invite and not force people to follow him.  When someone said that he wanted to follow Jesus, Jesus responded that, in following him, one must accept days a homeless, nomadic life style that Jesus was living in those days.  To another, when Jesus told him to follow him, he requested permission to bury his father.  Jesus knew that his family would demand that he stay to replace his father who had just died.  Custom and tradition would require him to take the place of his father.  To another who wanted to say farewell, Jesus said to him that he could not have his heart in two places.  Choose Jesus or your family at home.

Galatians 5:1, 13-18.  Again the call is to serve one or the other. Here it is the Spirit or the flesh.  To serve the Spirit gives us the freedom to serve what is for our eternal joy; to serve the flesh makes us slaves to our destruction.  Paul calls the Galatians to love one another because, as he writes to them, “if you go on biting and devouring one another, beware that you are not consumed by one another.”  If we live by the Spirit and not the flesh we gain the glorious inheritance that belongs to the children of God.

Psalm 16.   “You will show me the path to life, fullness of joys in your presence, the delights at your right hand forever.”

CorpChristiC19.   Genesis 14:18-20.  Abram had just returned from a great victory against his enemies. He recovered his nephew “Lot and his possessions, along with the women and the other captives. (Genesis 14:16b)  In celebration of the great victory God had given Abram, “Melchizedek, King of Salem, brought out bread and wine and being a priest of God Most High” and also said, “blessed be God Most High, who delivered your foes into your hand.” This prefigures the Eucharist which is liturgy of thanksgiving celebrating the work of God.

Luke 9:11b-17.  “Jesus spoke to the crowds about the kingdom of God.” He was helping to establish that kingdom, not a worldly one but a spiritual, heavenly one, by curing the sick and feeding the five thousand men plus women and children.  These miracles testified not only to the veracity of his message but also to his divinity.

1 Corinthians 11:23-26.  In the study of the historical development of Christianity from the time of Christ on, it has been found that the earliest writings of Christianity were the epistles of Paul.  Here Paul is writing to the Corinthian Christians concerning their practice of the liturgy of the Eucharist.  When Jesus took the bread and broke it, he said, “This is my body,” and of the cup of wine, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood.”  He handed to his Apostles what was the bread and the cup of wine to eat and drink but now is his body and blood.  In John 6:54, Jesus said, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.”  The bread and wine still appear to be as they were, but because he is the infinitely almighty God, whatever he says is done, is done.  After first changing the bread into his body and then the wine into his blood, each time he says, “Do this in remembrance of me.  This Jesus repeats twice.  We obey Jesus’ command when we celebrate the liturgy of the Eucharist.  Proclaiming the death of the Lord is to proclaim his sacrificing of himself to God the Father which gained for us forgiveness of our sins which, in turn, opened the Gates of Heaven to us and gives us eternal life.

TrinityC19.   Proverbs 8:22-31.  Here ’wisdom’ is personified, as if it were a divine person whom God employed, to help him create the world.  I believe that this passage was put here this Sunday as way of prefiguring Jesus’ work and presence in the Holy Trinity.

John 16:12-15.  “Jesus said to his disciples: ‘I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now now.’”  As eighth grade material is not taught to a student who is on the fourth grade level, likewise Jesus’ disciples need to be taught by the Spirit in steps.  That is true of us too.  “But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth.”  Jesus gives us the divine teacher, the Holy Spirit, who uses the bible, the Church, the priests and other ministers and whatever else he desires, to teach us the truth or genuine reality of all that is forever.  The Holy Spirit, along with other members of the Trinity, the One God, because of his divinity, is the only one who knows the fullness of what is the truth or reality.  The Spirit teaches not as a person separate from the oneness of God but from the wholeness that is the three Persons who is the One God.  He does not just teach us facts about God but gradually reveals God himself to us so that we may have eternal life.  Jesus prays to the Father as the disciples listen in John 17:3, “Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.”

Romans 5:1-5.   Paul had been brought to Rome as a prisoner in chains.  He says we can “even boast of our afflictions” because he himself is now afflicted with imprisonment.  The Spirit helps to develop our holiness through our afflictions as faith grows because we can no longer remain in Christ on our own but only with the strength of the Spirit.  Faith gives us access to the grace we need to remain firm in Christ because it roots us in Christ.  We are a people of hope because we know from past experiences that the love of our God for us never lets us down.  “The love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”

PentC19.   Acts of the Apostles 2:1-11.  Here the account is of the astounding scene of Pentecost and the events that flowed from it.  “They were all filled with Holy Spirit.” That gave them the gift to proclaim “the mighty acts of God” and those who were listening heard them in their own tongue which were many.  The almighty God demonstrated his might with filling the room with “a noise like a strong driving wind” and the Holy Spirit “appeared to them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them.”  In Matthew 3:11 John the Baptist says that the Messiah will baptize with the Holy Spirit and a fire that will burn up the chaff, i.e. those who refuse to repent.  In this Pentecost passage, however, I think that the fire that Holy Spirit brings to the Apostles and Mary will be an intensity of enthusiasm to preach the good news of Jesus Christ, an intensity that this world cannot quench.  Genesis 1:2b relates “a mighty wind that swept over the waters.  I think that in that passage as well as the one for Pentecost the mighty wind signals the entry of the almighty God on to the scene.

1 Corinthians 12:3b-7, 12-13.   This passage begins, “No one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit.”  As I understand it, Paul is virtually saying the same thing Jesus says in John 15:5c, “Without me you can do nothing” (good).  The Spirit uses us as his visible instruments to do his good works in this world, each of us in various and sundry ways.  “To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit.”  In doing our assigned part together we build the one church through the work of the Spirit in us, who enables us to function as one coordinated entity for good of all, unity in diversity.  Jesus says in John 17:22: “I have given then the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to perfection as one.”

Romans 8:8-17.    “For if you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”  According to biology, human beings are classified as the animal homo sapiens.  Animal life has a beginning and an end where it rots and the remains go back into the soil.  Spiritual life has a beginning but no end.  For each one of us, our lives are a journey from the beginning to the end either by choosing to live the animal life by pleasing our bodies, i.e. to live according to the flesh and rejecting what God wants of us, or to choose to live the spiritual life by pleasing only God.  Those who daily choose to have the Spirit dwell in them receive the spiritual life from him and are led by him to become children of God through the power of the Spirit.  As children of God, we become “heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.”  By choosing Christ we alienate ourselves from the world, which will reject and even punish us for making that decision.

John 20:19-23.  After the resurrection, Jesus appears to the disciples to commission them to preach the gospel, saying, “Peace be with you.  As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” Then “he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.’”  First he gives them Holy Spirit and then the power to forgive sins.  When they went out to preach the gospel, they brought with them the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit.  Forgiving sins was a power that only God could exercise prior to this. Now the Holy Spirit makes them the instruments of his forgiveness so that the converts to Christianity could have the Spirit dwell within them.

John 14:15-16, 23b-26.  Jesus said to his disciples: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give another Advocate to be with you always.”  To have God as our God we must love him with the love he gives us and obey his Will because his Will is love.  Jesus said, “The Advocate, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you.”  The Apostles and all of us who teach the faith throughout the ages will be informed and guided by the Holy Spirit so that we will not stray from the truth.  The Catholic Church and its officials, the Bible, the holy buildings and books, the sacraments are instruments of the Spirit to move us day by day on the road to the heaven.  We have God the Holy Spirit as the insurance from God the Father and Son to keep faithful and enriched for the work that God wants accomplished on earth.