When I was teaching, I attended professional development conferences to learn new ideas for the classroom. While at a conference, I listened to enthusiastic presenters who shared new ideas and strategies. When I returned from the conference I would get caught up in other matters, and by Monday morning, my good intentions to implement the ideas I learned began to fade away.
We run this same risk with our Easter inspirations. We may have been lifted up by the music, the Scriptures, the decorations, and the thought-provoking homily on Easter Sunday. During Mass we may have thought about how to let the power of Easter grace change our lives. Then came Monday morning; back to our routines. Easter ideas began to fade into the background, and Sunday liturgy may now seem more like a movie we watched than a life-changing move of grace.
The Church follows up on Resurrection grace by putting before us an action plan. By choosing post-Pentecost readings, she stirs us into acting on the grace we have received. We listen to St. Peter’s Pentecost sermon (Acts 2:36-41).
“Let the whole house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”
What a powerful, mind-shaking claim! Peter was letting the crowd know who Jesus really was—“Lord”, a title that belongs only to God, and “Christ,” the anointed Messiah that the Jews longed for since the prophecy of Moses. If what Peter said was true, the great moment in Israel’s history had come. And to verify that Jesus truly was Lord and Christ, God raised him from the dead. What greater evidence could ever be given?
“Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and they asked Peter and the other Apostles, ‘What are we to do, my brothers?’”
So powerful was the move of the Holy Spirit that the group asked the most important of questions: “What are we to do?” Notice the word “do.” It was not a time for reflection or discussion; it was time for action. So Peter offered them an immediate action plan. He didn’t say, “Come back next Sunday and I’ll fill you in on more details.” Instead he said to them,
“Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the Holy Spirit.”
A fourfold action plan. Repent, be baptized, receive forgiveness, allow the Holy Spirit to take over your life. In doing this they would allow themselves to officially accept the Lordship of Jesus and get caught up in the powerful grace of this new Messianic age.
“About three thousand persons were added that day.”
Amazing! Three thousand people, during this moment of grace, allowed their lives and futures to be transformed forever.
Then we move to the gospel reading (John 20:11-18). We read about one of the greatest “doers” in the New Testament—Mary Magdalene. All the disciples sat huddle up in fear. They didn’t know what to do. Magdalene, on the other hand, knew what to do, and she did it. She hurried to the tomb as risky as that action was. And, there she met Jesus!
“She thought (Jesus) was the gardener and said to him, ‘Sir, if you carried him away, tell me where you laid him…Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ She turned and said to him in Hebrew, ‘Rabbouni’…Jesus said to her, ‘Stop holding on to me…But go to my brothers and tell them…’”
Jesus did not allow her to hold on to him and savor the moment. It was “action” time. He commissioned Mary to leave him immediately, to go, and to evangelize–to carry the news to the rest of the group.
What action plan is the Holy Spirit putting before us today? I suggest that it is the same one that was given to the Pentecost crowd and to Mary Magdalene. Repent! Hey, I thought we already did that during Lent. We are not like the unbelievers to whom Peter was speaking. Maybe we are to repent for not taking action as a result of Easter grace. Maybe we haven’t really changed, but have slipped back into our “same old, same old” pre-Easter lifestyle. “Be baptized!” But I’ve already been baptized. Maybe we need to ask the Holy Spirit to stir up the waters of our baptism so as to release all the grace that has been planted in us. “Receive the Holy Spirit!” It is time to be re-baptized, not in water, but in the Holy Spirit. “Go, evangelize!” Who me? Yes. Every believer, as Pope Francis has continued to remind us, is an evangelist. When Jesus tells us to “Go,” to whom is he sending us and what message are we to deliver? There are no “bench warmers” in the Body of Christ. We are all called into action.
Holy Spirit, what am I to do?
“O God, who have bestowed on us paschal remedies, endow your people with heavenly gifts…” (from Collect of today’s liturgy).
