PentA.   In Judaism on Passover, the people of Israel were freed from their enslavement to Pharaoh; on Shavuot, they were given the Torah and became a nation committed to serving God.  The word Shavuot means weeks, and the festival of Shavuot marks the completion of the seven-week counting period between Passover and Shavuot. (Wikipedia under Shavuot)  For Christians, Passover becomes Easter when we pass from slavery to our sinfulness to freedom because we have been redeemed by Christ death on the Cross.  For Christians Shavuot, which is also the feast of harvest of barley & wheat, is Pentecost or the giving of the Holy Spirit who is our living, i.e. not written, guide and enabling force in the spiritual life, and the harvesting of Jesus’ work with his Apostles.

Genesis 11:1-9 & Acts of the Apostles 2:1-11.  I wish to look at the first readings for the Vigil and the Feast of Pentecost together because it seems to me that they meant to be contrasting and in that sense complementary as left to right arms.  In the Genesis reading the people already speak the same language but God confuses their language because their unity of language was being used to try to accomplish things without God; whereas in the Acts reading, they are being united in the one Holy Spirit by understanding each in one’s own language “of the mighty acts of God.”  God brings about unity with God as the center but without God there is only division and chaos.  If we try to reach to the sky on our own, no good will come of it; but being united with God who comes down from the sky to earth, all is well.

In Genesis 1:1-2 “a mighty wind swept over the waters” as a sign that God creative powers were about to work.  In the Acts reading with the coming of the Spirit he appears “like a strong driving wind.”  The Spirit comes as “tongues of fire” that gave the Apostles an intensity of desire to speak “of the mighty acts of God.”

John7:37-39 & John 20:19-23.  The reading of the Vigil states that there had been “no Spirit yet;” nevertheless, Luke’s Gospel speaks of the Spirit working long before Pentecost (Lk. 1:35, 41; 2: 25-26; 3: 22; 4:1, 14).  I believe John’s gospel means to say that the Holy Spirit of Pentecost, that was to give the spiritual gifts necessary to initiate the Church after Jesus had been glorified in the Ascension, was to arrive at the proper time later.  Jesus “exclaimed, ‘Let anyone who thirsts come to me and drink.  As the Scripture says: Rivers of living water will flow from within him who believes in me.’  He said this in reference to the Spirit that those who came to believe in him were to receive.”  The ‘rivers of living water’ that are to flow from the Christian believers perhaps are the graced workings of the Holy Spirit who dwell within them.  In John’s Gospel the Holy Spirit is given on Easter Sunday (first of the week).  Jesus said, “’Peace be with you.  As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’  And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’”  With Jesus present to them physically as he walked the surface of the earth, God’s grace or life flow into them externally.  When Jesus breathed on them the Holy Spirit, the breathe of God’s spiritual life was within them.  They no longer needed the external, physical presence of Jesus as a source of God’s grace or spiritual life.

Jesus said, “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”  He was also ordaining them as priests (Grk. presbyteroi) so that the Church then had the power to forgive sins so to renew spiritual life within the faithful.  Spiritual life was what Jesus had come to bring, the gift that gives eternally.  Miracles, that give or renew physical life, are only  a sign that Jesus and the Church, Body of Christ, (that exists physically after Jesus had left the world physically when he ascended into heaven)  have the power to give the spiritual life that is for all eternity.  With the forgiveness of sins, the spiritual life of each one of the members of the Church is reborn and renewed and so the Church has the Spirit’s life as its driving force.

On Easter Sunday, Jesus said, “Peace be with you” to give a type of resurrection to the Apostles who had locked themselves “for fear of the Jews” in the upper room which had become a sort of tomb for them.

Romans 8:22-27.  The lifelong labor or struggle for holiness leads us to a groaning because we cannot just go out and do it and it’s done.  Rather it is a never-ending- till- death struggle because the opposition does not give up until we have breathed our last breathe and are in the firm grip of the Lord, adopted into heaven as his son and daughters.  The Holy Spirit groans along with us in our struggle, interceding for us “with inexpressible groanings.”  It is like the groaning of those who are in a tug-of-war, or pushing on something or pulling on something we cannot move.  We do not want to give up but, no matter how hard we try, we cannot get the job done.  The forces that oppose the Lord never give up because they know, that as long as we have free will, they still have the chance to turn the tide.  Nevertheless, we will have the victory as long as we stay united to the Spirit who never ceases to intercede “for the holy ones according to God’s will.”

“As we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies” Paul writes.  I have always heard of redemption of our souls but as a whole person, our bodies need to be redeemed too.  Paul wrote,  “He will change our lowly bodies to conform with his glorified body by the power that enables him also to bring all things into subjection to himself.” (Philippians 3:21)  Paul continues, “But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait with endurance.”  Paul is encouraging Jesus’ followers to endure through difficulties.  “For this momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weigh of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to what is seen but to what is unseen; for what is seen is transitory, but what is unseen is eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4: 17-18)

 

1 Corinthians 12:3b-7, 12-13.  Paul wrote, “None can say, ‘Jesus is Lord’, except by the Holy Spirit.  Jesus said to St. Peter who had professed to Jesus, “You are the Messiah, the son of the living God,”  “For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.” (Matthew 16:16-17)  We can nothing good, unless we are graced by God to do it, even if we deny the existence of God or do not even know or care that there is a God.

The Church is a community of believers who receive many, differing gifts so that, as a whole its tasks work a unified result.  There are many parts of the whole body but all the parts are to work together for the benefit of the whole entity.  There is one Spirit to work together through all the baptized to achieve God’s will.  “To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit.”  God’s gifts, God’s will differs for each individual, but we work as a cohesive whole and so we, though many, are one.  “We were all given to drink of the one Spirit;” but, if we do not, we will die on the vine and be fruitless.

AscenA23.  Acts of the Apostles 1:1-11.    The Acts of the Apostles is Luke’s second volume of Christian history.  After Jesus’ resurrection, he spent forty days with his apostles and then ascended up to heaven, promising them to send the Holy Spirit soon.  The Holy Spirit would empower them to be witnesses of the ongoing saving action of Jesus in the entire world.  Angels came to move the apostles on to the work to which Jesus had sent them.

Matthew 28:16-20.   Jesus commissions his Apostles and with them all his followers/disciples to, in turn, make others into becoming obedient followers of Christ.  The action of enabling others to become disciples of Christ is baptism, which is a spiritual birth that enables us to become children of God the Father, reborn by water and the Spirit. (John 3:1-16)  In being obedient followers of Christ, Jesus assures us that he, though invisibly so, is with us until one day he returns, as the angels asserted, as he was once here.  It is not enough to be baptized and go our own individual way.  Jesus calls upon us as we go through life on our way to heaven to bring others along with us to heaven.  As Jesus’ divine life worked in his human flesh, so he empowers us with his presence within us to enable sinners to become saints.

Ephesians 1:17-23.  “May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you a Spirit of wisdom and revelation resulting in knowledge of him.”  Through daily spiritually living with God the Father whose love for us enables us to see him with “the eyes of our hearts,” we experience “the surpassing greatness of his power for us who believe” in him.  We live by the grace of his divinity that he shares with us as members of his “church, which is his body,” the fullness of Jesus who fills us life.  While still on earth with an earthly body, Jesus shared with us something of himself “who fills all things in every way.”  “We were called to fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:9b) who enables us to live spiritually with him, even while our lives here depend on our earthly bodies.

AscenA20.    Acts of the Apostles 1:1-11.   Luke first writes his gospel and secondly the Acts of the Apostles.  He addresses both to Theophilus, which translated from the Greek means one who loves God.  In other words, he is speaking to people who are already believers but want to increase their belief.   Luke relates that Jesus was taken up into heaven, “after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit (but before Pentecost) to the apostles whom he had chosen.”  They only receive the Holy Spirit himself later at Pentecost.  Jesus says to his Apostles, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses.” “When he had said this, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight.”  “Suddenly two men dressed in white garments” “said, ‘Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky?  This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven.’”  In other words, Jesus wants the Apostles now to get on the next phase of their work here on earth and not just stare into the sky.  Jesus in effect is saying await the Spirit.  Once empowered by him go and convert the world.

Matthew 28:16-20.  Jesus says in Matthew 28:19a: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations; and in Matthew 28:20b: “And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”  The end of the age means the end of the universe or Jesus’ Second Coming when Jesus judges all as Lord over all.  Meanwhile though not physically present, he is with us spiritually to continue his ministry to lead all to heaven through the power of the Spirit.

Ephesians 1:17-23.   Paul writes: “Brothers and sisters: May the God of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you a Spirit of wisdom and revelation resulting in the knowledge of him.” In Matthew 16:15b -16 Peter said: “You are the Messiah, the son of the living God.” Jesus said in reply, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah.  For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.”  That was ‘the Spirit of wisdom and revelation,’ working in the name of the Father, working in a spiritually unseen but a divinely, real manner.  “And he put all things beneath his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of the one who fills all things in every way.” Jesus is all that is all-6 good and heavenly given.  Though not here bodily he is here even more intensely spiritually to fulfill his mission to bring all to salvation.

 

AscA17.  Acts of the Apostles 1:1-11.  Luke begins his history of the beginnings of the Church established by Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah or Christ by addressing his writings to Theophilus, which is Greek meaning ‘lover of God’.  Perhaps what he really means to say is ‘to all of you who love God’.   Luke sets up a timeline of forty days after the resurrection during which Jesus presented himself alive to prove that he truly had arisen and to prepare his followers for the coming of the Holy Spirit so that they could begin forming the Church based on the spiritual presence of the Holy Spirit and not the physical presence of Jesus.

“When they had gathered together, they asked him, ‘Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?’” That question seems to indicate that they still were thinking that Jesus came to overthrow the Romans and become king of the worldly kingdom of Israel.  Jesus sidesteps the question by responding that they are not to know the times that God the Father has established; “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses” everywhere.  Jesus then ascended up into heaven.  The Apostles were left on the ground astounded and probably quite at a loss at what they had just seen and what it all meant for them.  Angels appear saying, “This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven.”  They are predicting the Second Coming of Jesus when he comes to end the physical universe and call all his own to him and to heaven.

Matthew 28:16-20.  “When they saw him, they worshiped, but they doubted.”  They adored him but they did not know where this was all going to go.  As their question in the Acts of the Apostles shows, they wanted to have a worldly based certainty in what they were putting their trust.   Faith in Christ is believing that in the end God will make it all work out without us knowing how.  The Holy Spirit would help them gain that depth of faith that they did not yet have.  Jesus said to them, “All power in heaven and earth has been given to me.”  He has been obedient to the Father’s Will to the utmost and so has gained the ultimate victory.  He goes to heaven so to give the victory to us to establish his kingdom on earth in the souls of all who are willing to believe in Him.  As he made disciples so he empowers us to do likewise making disciples, followers of Jesus who follow him to heaven through the Spirit he sends us.  Baptism in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit unites to the One God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  “Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” means that what God teaches we believe: nothing more; nothing less.  Though not now with us as when he walked physically with his apostles, he is with us spiritually.  “And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”  ‘The end of the age’ is what the angels promised at end of the first reading, i.e. his Second Coming.

Ephesians 1:17-23.  Paul asks that we be blessed with a Spirit of wisdom and revelation resulting in knowledge of him.  My understanding is that Paul is asking that we be blessed with the presence of the Holy Spirit who will enable us to come to know “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory” personally throughout our lives.  “May the eyes of your heart, i.e., the emotions by which we live daily be enlightened by God so that he himself is our hope to share in the riches of his eternal glory, his awesomeness beyond anything human beings are capable of imagining.  God put all things beneath Jesus’ “feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of the one who fills all things in every way.” Jesus makes all things to be filled with God’s goodness.  When we are his, we have everything but without him, we have nothing.

East6A23.  Acts of the Apostles 8:5-8, 14-17.    Philip reached out to convert the Samaritan Jews who had historically been treated as rejects (schismatic Jews) by the Jerusalem Jews.  His miraculous cures proved the authenticity of his call to accept Jesus as the Messiah; and so, many accepted conversion.  Peter and John completed the process of their conversion by laying hands on them so that they received the Holy Spirit.

John 14:15-21.  To accept Jesus as Messiah means to love him as he loves us, to embrace him as he embraces us.  However, the relationship is not as one equal to another, but as one who is finite and created to a God who is infinite and the Creator.The nature of this relationship demands that we be totally obedient and subservient to our God.  The way we ‘know’ the Spirit is a life in which we gradually come to live with him as the breathe and source of daily life for us.  Also Jesus, God the Son, becomes the source of life for us, since as he said, “because I live and you will live.” Christian life is not earthly, animal life but rather life in which we live in God and God in us.  “Whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him.”  Life in Christ through the power of the Spirit is heavenly life on earth.

1 Peter 3:15-18.  “Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts.”  Have the loving Lord as the love of our lives.  He is the only one we must please.  We would like to pleaseothers only so to attract them to Jesus but that is not always possible.  That often means that certain people reject and even despise us.  Jesus was rejected by those blind to values greater than earthly ones.  To be heavenly bound may mean to find this world a difficult, even painful place to live.

Easter6A20.    Acts of the Apostles  8:5-8, 14-17.

It appears that because of a persecution in Jerusalem led by Saul, Philip moves on and goes to evangelize Samaria.  The miracles that Philip performed helped the Samaritans to accept Jesus as the Messiah with great joy.  Before they had “been baptized only in the name of the Lord Jesus” but that was previous to Pentecost.  So they had not received the fullness of baptism, the Holy Spirit.  Peter and John were sent by the apostles in Jerusalem to bring the Holy Spirit to them.

John 14:15-21.  “Jesus said to his disciples: ‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”   The commandments he is speaking of are not the Ten Commandments given to Moses but rather ‘loving Jesus’ means that we love his will and will do whatever he wants of us. After all, his will is an expression of his love for us. To love God means to love him as one who is infinitely supreme and superior to everything and anyone else.  To love God is to respect who he is and, in an incredibly stark contrast to him, who we are. We love him as our God over us and we love his love for us, who only amount to anything because of his love for us and our living in his love for us.  “And whoever loves me will beloved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him.”  1 Peter 1:8a,b: says: “Although you have not seen him you love him; even though you do not see him now yet believe in him.”  Learning to live with Jesus daily is a wonderful experience that is at the same time mystical, spiritual and real.  Believe; he makes it happen.

The Holy Spirit he gives us is always with us and in us.  Not only is the Spiritin us; but Jesus says of himself that he will be in us and we will be in him.  In the Trinity, the Father and the Son are in the Spirit; the Spirit and the Son in the Father, and the Son in the Father and the Spirit.  In our own lowly way the Three Persons who are One God is inviting us to be a loved member of the Divine Trinitarian Family, where God’s love is our life.

1 Peter 3:15-18.   “For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that be the will of God, than for doing evil.”  “Put to death in the flesh, he was brought to life in the spirit.”  Jesus, both human and divine, surrendered his human life in the flesh to death; but that humanness rose from death to a spiritual life that carried him eternally beyond anything that is human.  In our world a body in the casket is lifeless and hopefully remembered for a wonderful past.  However that life that was once in that body has now immeasurably more, higher and far greater life than it ever had before.

E7A.  Acts of the Apostles 8:5-8, 14-17.  The Samaritan Jewish sect was considered counterfeit or fake Jews by the Jerusalem Jews who felt that the Jewish Law could only be fulfilled in the temple in Jerusalem.  For Philip to bring the Samaritan Jews to belief in Jesus as the Messiah was a great spiritual conquest.  Although they were baptized in Jesus, apparently they showed none of the charismatic gifts associated with the presence of the Holy Spirit.  So the Apostles in Jerusalem sent Peter and John to administer what we call the sacrament of Confirmation.

John 14:23.  This Gospel has a symphony of complimentary concepts or ideas.  First, to love Jesus means not only to have a deep affection for him, but even more importantly, to love and obey his will or his commandments.  Later in John 15:10, he says, “If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.”  And then in John 15 12, he says, “This is my commandment: love one another as I have loved you.”  He is not referring to the Ten Commandments but rather to the second of the two great commandments, which he changes from “Love your neighbor as you love yourself” to “Love one another as I have loved you.”  Neighbor was traditionally understood as one’s fellow countryman not the foreigner.  Secondly, the measure of what we ought do is what God does.  As I understand what Jesus is saying here is to love as God loves, i.e. love others and yourself as God loves all of you.  In Matthew 5:48 Jesus said, “So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”  There is a growth or development from the Old Testament or Covenant to the New.

Secondly,  when we have the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, living within us and we accept the life that he is giving us as our life or life force, we are said to know him, i.e., have an ever-deepening spiritual relationship with him and thereby with Jesus who reveals himself more and more to us through the Spirit.  Jesus said in this Gospel, “On that day you will realize that I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you.” I presume that the words ‘on that day’ refer to the day when we receive the Spirit.

Thirdly, God the Father has a special role as he works hand to hand with the Son and Holy Spirit.  Once we show that we want to grow in loving Jesus by loving his will, God the Father sends the Spirit to aid that growth. God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, loves us by enabling us to grow in holiness as God is holy to the extent that God has given us the capacity to be holy.

1 Peter 3:15-18.  In this section on Christian suffering, 1 Peter 3:13-15a states, “Now who is going to harm you if you are enthusiastic for what is good?  But even if you should suffer because of righteousness, blessed are you.  Do not be afraid or terrified with fear of them, but sanctify Christ in your hearts.”  Focus in on the Lord who is in your heart so to find strength and away from whatever or whomever gives you fear. 1 Peter 3:15b-16a continues, “Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope, but do it with gentleness and reverence, keeping your conscience clear.”  Be understanding and kind to anyone who questions you for your other-worldly behavior hoping to move them away a worldly behavior or attitude.  What is awkwardly stated in 1 Peter 3:18b, “Put to death in the flesh, he has brought to life in the spirit” I believe is better stated as, “Put to death what is of the flesh by suffering in the flesh; bring to life what is in the spirit.”  Perhaps a good summation is what John 15:18-19 states: “If the world hates you realize, that it hated me first.  If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you.”

 

East5A23.    Acts of the Apostles 6:1-7.   Among the early Christians there was favoritism that sprang up naturally in the community in Jerusalem where all goods were held in common without any private ownership to be more generous in the distribution of goods to those who were more Hebrew than those who had a more Greek-speaking background.  As a settlement, deacons were chosen to serve the more physical, material needs in the community in order to allow others to devote themselves more fully to the spiritual needs.  “The word of God continued to spread, and the number of the disciples in Jerusalem increased greatly; even a large group of priests were becoming obedient to the faith.” The Spirit of Pentecost was very productive.

John 14:1-12.    The Apostles were felling lost at the prospect of not having Jesus physically present with them.  Jesus calls upon them to trust in him to get the job done.  As they are with him on earth, they will be with him in heaven.  In the physical world the way to go is marked physically with road markers.  In the spiritual world the way to go is living one’s life daily in Christ.  Jesus was saying to Philip that we recognize God’s presence in our everyday human smallness.  Our God is right here, loving us, present to us.

1 Peter 2:4-9.  Recognizable only to the eyes that perceive what is spiritual, we can be seen in this world to be living in the same house where God lives.  We “are ‘a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own, so that you (we) may announce the praises’ of him who called you (us) out of darkness into his wonderful light.”  We know we are God’s people because we live as his, each and every day with him in our very midst.

Easter5A20.   Acts of the Apostles 6:1-7.   The Hellenists generally were the non-Hebrew members of the Christian community.  The Christian community looked after the needs of the widows but it seems that the distribution of goods seemed to favor the Hebrew widows more than the Hellenists.  The Apostles or the Twelve gathered the community to set up a special group chosen to care for the problem stated above.  We now call these men deacons.  The “number of the disciples in Jerusalem increased greatly,” building the church community in the days after Pentecost.

John 14:1-12.  “Jesus said to his disciples:”  “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.”   I will “’take you to myself, so that where I am going you also may be. Where I am going you know the way.’ Thomas said to him, ‘Master, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.’”  Thomas does not comprehend the spiritual.  For him things are only earthly.  That is why later Thomas refuses to accept Jesus’ resurrection.  To a person who thinks only in terms of what this earth is all about, death is absolute, total termination and obliteration.  Jesus was always trying to lift his disciples’ way of thinking from the earthly and physical to the spiritual and heavenly.  I do not think the disciples understood fully until the Spirit came to build them into people that had a spiritual frame of mind.  Spirituality is drawing the daily breathe of our lives from the Holy Spirit. The “dwelling places” that Jesus is speaking about is that we will have an eternal life with him, the Father and the Holy Spirit.  Even in this world if we are children of God the Father, then we live in profound and intimate union with the person of God.  Our dwelling place is our life or our dwelling in Jesus who is also our way to heaven. Jesus goes to the Father to be our Advocate along with the Spirit, calling upon the Father that what we do in his name and will, we will do empowered by the Father.  The works that Jesus did, he will now do through us, by making us the instruments of his will on earth.

1 Peter 2:4-9.  God is building his spiritual house, his Church, that is to say his Christian community, with his people, as the living stones.  What enables us to be his living stones is our faith which empowers us to draw our spiritual life from Christ.  To those who choose to live in Christ, “you are ‘a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own, so that you may announce the praises’ of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”   The real Church is the people of God who use a physical building called the church to be the visible sign of the Holy Spirit’s invisible work in this world.

E5A.  Acts of the Apostles 6:1-7.  The Hellenists were Jews who spoke only Greek.  At this point Paul had not yet reached out to the Gentiles.  In the Acts of the Apostles 4:32-35, it states in verse 32 that all temporal possessions were held in common and in verse 35 that those goods were distributed to each according to need.  In today’s first reading the Hellenists complain that in fact the Hellenists “widows were being neglected in the daily distribution.”  The Apostles or “the ‘Twelve’ called together the community of the disciples and said, ‘It is not right for us to neglect the word of God to serve at table.”  “Filled with the Spirit and wisdom,” they created an order of service to the community, or what we have always called the diaconate, to be in charge of the proper distribution of goods.  The establishment of deacons is formally constituted by the Apostles’ prayer and the laying on of hands.  The Apostles declare that they shall devote themselves “to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”  However, the deacons are never later mentioned as serving at table but, at least, in the case of Philip and Stephen, as serving in the ministry of the word.  Stephen is not martyred for his serving at table but for his ministry of the word.

In the gospel for this Sunday Jesus declares, “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father.” (John 14:12)  In the next verses that go just beyond the ones quoted in this Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus says, “And whatever you ask in my name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.  If you ask anything in my name, I will do it.” (John 14:13-14)  I believe the works that Jesus is referring to are the efforts of those who believe in Jesus to bring people to a life of faith in God.  This is testified to in the last sentence of the first reading, “The word of God continued to spread, and the number of the disciples increased greatly; even a large group of priests were becoming obedient to the faith.”

John 14:1-12.  In my practice as a parish priest this reading is the most popular for funerals because of what Jesus said, “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be.”  The faith that Jesus calls us to is faith in his person, not so much in a set of instructions, or an idea, ideal or general concepts.  When Thomas wants to bring things down to earth or the everyday world, Jesus responds, “I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.”  Only the Son can take us to the Father.  The only way to heaven is to obediently follow the Good Shepherd as humble sheep.  Jesus says, “The Father who dwells in me is doing his works.”  God the Father works through his Son and in turn through those who work in their faith in his Son.  Our faith opens the door to God to enter into us and use us as his instruments or hands to bring the faith to others.

1 Peter 2:4-9.  “Beloved: Come to him, a living stone, rejected by human beings but chosen and precious in the sight of God, and, like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”  Once again it is only through Jesus that we have a way to heaven by offering spiritual sacrifices through obedience to his will within the spiritual house that is the Church which is made of the living stones, all the people who live daily in the Lord.  Peter writes of us, “You are ‘a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own, so that you may announce the praises’ of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”  Not to live in Christ is to live in darkness; to live in Christ is to live in the light.  We now are his new chosen priestly people, the new Israel, who offer ourselves and all we do in him as sacrifices to God.

It seems quite appropriate here to quote Ephesians 2:19-22.  “So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, you are fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone.  Through him the whole structure is held together and grows into a temple sacred in the Lord; in him you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.”