Ascension practice homily

Dear Friends,
I know its been a while--I'm terrible at blogging I've realized--but I wanted to share with you a homily I gave for class a few weeks ago in anticipation of the great feast we celebrate tomorrow (on Sunday in the States).  Pentecost is almost here!  Get excited!

Ascension Homily

Acts 1:1-11, Ps 47:2-9, Eph 1:17-23, Mk 16:15-20

 Right up till the end, the Apostles didn’t get it.  During Jesus’ lifetime, they thought he was going to defeat the Romans and usher in a new earthly kingdom—even though Jesus told them many times that he was going to suffer and die.  When Jesus was captured and sentenced to death, most of them fled, and even after the resurrection they still couldn’t believe what had happened.  Jesus was with them for 40 days explaining the true meaning of the Scriptures, showing miraculous proofs of his resurrection to encourage their faith, and still we hear them ask in our first reading, “are you going to restore the kingdom now?”  They just didn’t get it: no matter how many times Jesus told them, it wasn’t going to make a difference—they needed something more to really understand who Jesus was.  They needed the Holy Spirit.

            What did the Holy Spirit do for them that Jesus didn’t?  The second reading gives a clue: The Spirit gives KNOWLEDGE of Jesus…so that we may “KNOW what is the hope that belongs to His call.”  The disciples knew a lot ABOUT Jesus, and even lived with Him, but didn’t really KNOW fully who Jesus was until the Holy Spirit revealed it to them.  It seems that when the Holy Spirit taught the apostles, the knowledge didn’t stay in their heads, but went to their hearts so that they finally KNEW Jesus was the Lamb of God who took away their sins.  The Holy Spirit then, as the Wisdom of God, breathed this saving knowledge deep within their souls so that they could no longer doubt—they knew personally that Jesus was the Son of God and had truly taken away their sins by His sacrifice on the cross.  They KNEW that they were nothing but sinners, but Christ in His infinite love redeemed them and all of humanity from their slavery to sin.  This deep knowledge and conviction gave them unimaginable joy and power—the power to proclaim the Gospel boldly with conviction and faith, the power to be courageous in the face of adversity, the Power to overcome the evil One in prayer, the power to be a witness.  This is what Jesus meant when he said, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses.”

But after the Ascension, they didn’t have this power.  Jesus tells them in the Acts of the Apostles to go back to Jerusalem and wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit.  This is wise: if they were to go out and preach the Gospel immediately, it would have been disastrous: they were still fearful, still uncertain about who Jesus really was, even after so much evidence in front of them.  We experience this same truth ourselves when we try and witness our faith to others don’t we?  We might know all the right theology, the right arguments, and even be able to demonstrate how reasonable Christianity is—but unless we KNOW that God loves us personally and have experienced it, we can’t transmit that saving message to others.  Without this Power of the Holy Spirit and the true knowledge He brings, we can’t be converted ourselves, much less convert the world.

But we don’t need this Power just to do miraculous things.  No, we need the Holy Spirit to do very simple things—even to pray or believe in Jesus at all!  The disciples lived with Jesus and saw incredible things on a daily basis, but they still had a hard time believing.  Peter still denied Jesus 3 times when asked if he knew Jesus; Judas still betrayed him, the rest of the disciples still fled from the Garden.  We are no better.  We deny Jesus with our silence when we hear people ridicule our faith and say nothing; we betray him when we sin against our neighbor; we abandon Him in the poor, the suffering, and the outcast when we turn a blind eye to their plight.  Yes, brothers and sisters, we need the true knowledge of the Holy Spirit so that we are convicted of God’s deep love for us and only then can we have the power to give that same love to our neighbors.  You can’t give what you don’t have. 

The full outpouring of the Holy Spirit is a gift that God gives us in the Sacrament of Confirmation; but if your experience was like mine, the experience of Confirmation wasn’t one of fire descending from heaven and speaking in tongues.  Why not?  Maybe because we don’t get it.   We should ask ourselves if we really believe that these Scriptures are telling the truth and if this Power of God is real and if God’s love is real and can change our lives—and then the next question is, “Will I ask God for His love and Power to come upon me?”  God respects our freedom; he wants us to ask for the Holy Spirit.  Brothers and sisters, if you are hungry for more, if you want to KNOW that God is real and KNOW that He loves you and will never leave you no matter how often we fail; ask God with me now for the Holy Spirit’s love and Power.  God is not stingy with His gifts, but lavishes them upon us.  The only thing preventing God from loving us is our own stubbornness!  Let Him in!  He wants to show us His love so much that He will humble Himself to be hidden behind the appearances of bread and wine on this altar so that we can physically taste His love for us!

As a parish, we will be praying the Novena to the Holy Spirit after mass for the next nine days.  Just like the first apostles, we will pray and wait for the Holy Spirit with expectant faith.  Don’t wait another day to experience the fullness of life that God wants for us; we have been living in fear and uncertainty for long enough.  Come Holy Spirit!  Fill the Hearts of your faithful and enkindle in them the fire of your love!

Ash Wednesday- Station Churches #1 Santa Sabina

A blessed Lent to one and all!
    A lot has happened and I haven't been so good at writing it down for posterity.  Suffice it to say, I survived my exams, as well as the huge snowstorm we had in Rome--that's right, snowstorm--and here are the pictures to prove it!

Roman Snow!!!

Seminarians are so creative...need a snow bathroom?

 A unique opportunity that we have studying here in Rome is participating in the Stational Church pilgrimage.  This is an ancient tradition that goes back to St. Gregory the Great.  Basically, you make pilgrimage to one new church or basilica in Rome every day for mass.  I plan on going to all of them if I can and writing a little blurb for you here.  Today's church was Santa Sabina, the Dominican Church.  The fresco in the apse (which, unfortunately, my camera couldn't capture well) is of Christ preaching, which becomes "streams of living water" which quench the thirst of the Church.  It also boasts of the worlds oldest depiction of the crucifixion in art (remembering that the image of the fish was much more common in antiquity). 

Santa Sabina

    For your convenience, I thought I'd attach Pope Benedict's homily that he gave this evening in Santa Sabina about the Ashes on Ash Wednesday.  As always, the Pope is very clear and profound.  If you haven't read it yet, here it is, courtesy of vatican.va:

"Ash Wednesday is a day of fasting and penance on which we begin a new journey towards the Easter of Resurrection, the journey of Lent. I would like to reflect on the liturgical sign of the ashes, a material sign, a natural element that, in the Liturgy, becomes a sacred symbol, so important on this day that marks the start of our Lenten journey. In ancient times, in the Jewish culture, it was common to sprinkle one’s head with ashes as a sign of penance, and to dress in sack-cloth and rags. For us Christians, there is this one moment which has important symbolic and spiritual relevance.

Ashes are the material sign that brings the cosmos into the Liturgy. The most important signs are those of the Sacraments: water, oil, bread and wine, which become true sacramental elements through which we communicate the Grace of Christ who comes among us. The ashes are not a sacramental sign, but they are linked with prayer and the sanctification of the Christian people. Before the ashes are placed on our heads, they are blessed according to two possible formulae: in the first they are called “austere symbols”, in the second, we invoke a blessing directly upon them, referring to the text in the Book of Genesis which can also accompany the imposition of the ashes: “Remember that you are dust and unto dust you shall return”.
Let us reflect for a moment on this passage of Genesis.

It concludes with a judgement made by God after original sin. God curses the serpent who caused man and woman to commit sin. Then He punishes the woman saying she will suffer the pains of giving birth. Then He punishes the man, saying he will suffer the fatigue of labour and He curses the soil saying “accursed be the soil because of you, because of your sin.” The man and woman are not cursed directly as the serpent is, but because of Adam’s sin. Let us reread the account of how God created man from the Earth. “God fashioned man of dust from the soil. Then He breathed into his nostrils, a breath of life. Thus man became a live being. Then God planted a garden in Eden, which is in the East, and there He put the man He had fashioned.” Thus the sign of the ashes recalls the great story of creation which tells us that being human means unifying matter with Divine breath, using the image of dust formed by God and given life by His breath, breathed into the nostrils of the new creature.

In the Genesis account, the symbol of dust takes on a negative connotation because of sin. Before the fall the soil is totally good: through God’s work it is capable of producing “every kind of tree enticing to look at and good to eat.” After the fall and following the divine curse it produces only thorns and brambles and only in exchange for the sweat of man’s brow will it surrender its fruits. The dust of the Earth no longer recalls the creative hand of God, one that is open to life, but it becomes a sign of death: “Dust you are and unto dust you shall return.”It is clear from this Biblical text that the Earth participates in man’s destiny. In one of his homilies, St. John Chrysostom says: “See how after his disobedience, everything is imposed on man in a way that is contrary to his previous life style.” This cursing of the soil has a “medicinal” function for man who learns from the resistance of the earth to recognize his limitations and his own human nature.

Another ancient commentary summarizes this beautifully: “Adam was created pure by God to serve Him. All creatures were created for the service of man. He was destined to be lord and king over all creatures. But when he embraced evil he did so by listening to something outside of himself. This penetrated his heart and took over his whole being. Thus ensnared by evil, Creation, which had assisted and served him, was ensnared together with him.”

As we said earlier quoting John Chrysostom, the cursing of the soil had a “medicinal”, or healing, function: meaning that God’s intention is always good and more profound, even than His own curse. The curse does not come from God but from sin. God cannot avoid inflicting the curse because he respects human freedom and its consequences even when they are negative. Thus, within the punishment and within the curse, there is a good intention that comes from God. When He says, “Dust you are and unto dust you shall return”, He intends inflicting a just punishment, but also announcing the way to salvation. This will pass through the Earth, through that same dust, that same flesh which will be assumed by the Word Incarnate.

This is context in which the words of Genesis are reflected in the Ash Wednesday liturgy: as an invitation to penance, humility, and an awareness of our mortal state. We are not to despair, but to welcome in this mortal state of ours the unthinkable nearness of God who opens the way to Resurrection, to paradise regained, beyond death. There is a text by Origen that says: “That which was flesh, earth, dust, and was destroyed by death and returned to dust and ashes, is made to rise again from the earth. According to the merits of the soul that inhabits the body, the person advances towards the glory of a spiritual body.”

The merits of the soul about which Origen speaks are important, but more important are the merits of Christ, the efficacy of his Pascal Mystery. St. Paul gives us a good summary in the second reading: “For our sake God made the sinless one into sin so that in Him we might become the goodness of God.” For us to enjoy divine forgiveness depends essentially on the fact that God Himself, in the person of His Son, wanted to share in our human condition, but not in the corruption of sin.

The Father resurrected Him through the power of His Holy Spirit and Jesus, the new Adam, became the spirit who gives us life, the first fruits of the new creation.

The same spirit that resurrected Jesus from the dead can transform our hearts from hearts of stone to hearts of flesh. We said as much in the psalm: “A pure heart create for me O God, put a steadfast spirit within me, do not cast me away from your presence, nor deprive me of your holy spirit.” That the same God that exiled our first parents from Eden, sent His own Son to this Earth devastated by sin, without sparing Him, so that we, prodigal children, can return, penitent and redeemed through His mercy, to our true homeland. So it be for all of us, and for all believers, and for all those who humbly recognize their need to be saved. Amen.