You may remember the Vatican Synod on the Amazon in 2019. The Catholic Press touted “coming big changes” from this meeting of bishops and guests. The conference came and went…and nothing of significance changed.
In introducing our current, throughout the Church, synod meetings, our Lexington bishop, Bishop John Stowe, OFM Conv, commented that Pope Francis responded to questions about the Amazon Synod with something akin to this, “No, I did not act. Two sides came. Two sides left. Neither persuaded the other to move toward a unified decision. The Holy Spirit did not speak, so there was nothing to implement.”
Readings Today
This 6th Sunday of Easter our readings begin to move us from Easter toward Pentecost on June 5. The first reading from Acts discusses the first Church Council, the Council of Jerusalem. In this council the Holy Spirit did act to persuade people who came together to revise their perspectives to move toward a unified voice on the issue of circumcision for Gentiles when they came into “The Way” of Jesus.
The second reading comes from the next to last chapter of Revelation. It follows right after last week’s reading and gives a picture of the “New World” that the Kingdom of God will be—and is, even now, as we brick-of-God by brick-of-God, live our ordinary Christian lives.
The Gospel continues Jesus’ final instructions to his disciples on Holy Thursday. He continues with the theme of love, but joins it to “keeping my word,” and the importance of the Holy Spirit as a guide for the Church through history.
It’s a full plate of wonderful food for our minds, hearts, and wills.
Acts 15: 1-2, 22-29
I would encourage you to read all of Acts 15 as you ponder today’s reading. Verses 1-2 sets the stage and names the problem: people have come into the churches and created disturbance by disagreeing with what the Holy Spirit had demonstrated through Peter’s vision of “Take and eat,” with the subsequent conversion and coming of the Holy Spirit on the house of Cornelius, the conversion of Paul, the frequent rejection of Jesus as the Christ by Jewish communities, combined with the just-as-frequent acceptance of Christianity by the Greeks and Romans. Verses 3-21, not included in today’s reading, review all this, as well as both the role of all the church in debate of the issue and Peter’s role as leader. We then read the decision, once the debate was over, as sent via writing and messenger back to the Gentile Christians in Antioch and the other churches, which is today’s reading.
One detail which was included that I have often wondered about was “abstain from meat sacrificed to idols, from blood, from meats of strangled animals, and from unlawful marriage.” I found out what this means. These were points in the old law which had always been applied to Jews and Gentiles within Jewish communities. The issue of ‘unlawful marriage’ was not questioned in Jewish or emerging Christian culture, though it was a significant break from Greek and Roman practices of the day—even in religious ceremonies. The mild restrictions on food used in pagan worship gave practical tasks for turning away from old religious practices while they learned to live the new ones in their Christian communities.
How interesting! The Holy Spirit’s decision was to break with having to follow the whole law (which the debate showed people had never fully done), but—there still needed to be some basic agreements on the moral standards of Judaism and visible signs of living by Christian standards and practices.
John 14: 23-29
Our Gospel continues Jesus’ beautiful summary of living in the Kingdom of God from Holy Thursday. Today’s selection is Jesus’ answer to the question from one of the disciples, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us and not to the world?”
As Jesus answers, he gives us signposts for knowing how to follow Jesus when the circumstances are somewhat ambiguous:
- Loving Jesus includes doing what God’s Word says—ie, Scripture and teaching of the Church.
- The Holy Spirit is God dwelling within us and within the Church. God is present to us—collectively and individually through the Holy Spirit.
- We can count on the Holy Spirit to HELP US know what to do, as the Holy Spirit teaches us and guides us in applying God’s Word to current circumstances.
- An internal sense of deep peace is a sign of the presence of the Holy Spirit.
- Jesus physically died, rose from the dead, and ascended to the Father. But Jesus comes back to us—in the Eucharist, in all the sacraments, in the Church and its teachings, in our own prayer, and through individual discernment.
This is all rich and deep and worthy of serious pondering. When I get all distressed and disturbed—not at peace—with something going on in my own practice of the Faith or in my parish or in the Church as a whole—how does that concern/position/attitude/action measure up to those signposts Jesus gives us today?
I can’t say that it is always absolutely clear when I think of the concern that way—but it sure is a lot clearer. I can know what to do if I compare the issue to those standards. That is a wonderful gift! I do have to work at it, pray a while sometimes, because I get caught up in details and phrasing by protagonists and politics and my own pride. But the standards are there, and the quicker and more thoroughly I use them, the more signs of Christ’s peace I have to reassure me.
Revelation 21: 10-14, 22-23
I continue to listen to Bishop Barron’s homilies via his Word on Fire website on Revelation. He is helping me greatly to move beyond the elaborate descriptions in much of Revelation of gloom, doom, and destruction. The Church gives us these selections that describe the core of the meaning of Revelation: God’s Kingdom will come in fullness. It will come and ALL will be God’s will and God’s way. I recognize that that is hard for me to imagine, so it is hard for me to give it the power and glory and hope it deserves—and that I need. As today’s selection says, “I saw no temple in the city for its temple is the Lord God almighty and the Lamb. The city had no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gave it light, and its lamp was the Lamb.”
Applications
The final prayer from St. Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises is something I say each morning as part of my Morning Offering. It includes the words, “Give me only your love and your grace, and I am rich enough, and need nothing more.”
There was a period in my life, before my second conversion, when I actively fought those words. No, I didn’t want to trade my independence, my will, my life for ONLY God’s love and grace.
And, honestly, if I look carefully at how I spend my time, what I worry about and why, and what leads me to confusion and unable momentarily to follow the Holy Spirit and TRUST IT—I’m always diverted from “only your love and your grace” in some way.
I get out of the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, the Kingdom of God. I separate myself in my head and heart from what Jesus said on Holy Thursday night. I separate myself from God’s Word, from prayer, from community—from something.
The answer for me, again and again, is to come back to the Holy City, the Word of God and Church, the leadership of God present within me.
What about you? What guidance is the Holy Spirit giving you? How can we all move into (and stay) in “the decision of the Holy Spirit and of us.”
Prayer: (from St. Ignatius of Loyola)
Accept, oh Lord, all my freedom, my mind, my memory, my entire will. Whatever I am or possess, you have graciously given to me. I give it all back to you to be governed by your will. Give me only your love and your grace, and I am rich enough and ask nothing more.
