St. Thomas Aquinas was greatly blessed with one of the sharpest minds of any saint in the church. In addition, and more importantly, he was a mystic, a man of deep, deep prayer. His intellect, combined with prayer and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, led him to proclaim in reference to the Eucharist, “O precious and wonderful banquet, that brings us salvation and contains all sweetness! Could anything be of more intrinsic value?”
“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Jesus Christ’s final command to his disciples before ascending into heaven, called the Great Commission, might seem a simple and straightforward order for action. But its use on the Sunday dedicated to the mystery of the blessed Trinity tells us that something more is going on.
Given today’s COVID-19 context, it might seem odd that Jesus breathes on his disciples in our Gospel for Pentecost Sunday. In John 20:19-23, Jesus appears to his disciples gathered in the upper room, proving that he is risen from the dead and giving them peace. He also gives them a commission, “as my Father has sent me, so I send you.” But then comes the gift that enables the mission: He breaths on them and gives them a share in the Holy Spirit, through which they have the power to forgive sins.
One of the things we pray for at Mass on this feast of the Ascension is that we “may in spirit dwell already in the heavenly realms” where Christ has ascended. In a sense, we already are living in heaven because Christ our head has ascended there in glory, and so his body is destined to follow.
Love is the bull’s-eye of the good news of Jesus Christ. We know that. We have heard about the centrality of love countless times. Still, it is our mission to experience, ponder and live the love of God with greater depth every day of our lives.
During this holiest season of Easter, the ancient church refocused on understanding the faith’s most important mysteries, namely, our reception of Christ’s risen life through baptism and the Eucharist. Today, we tend to focus more on the moral and societal aspects of religion, which leads us to a greater emphasis on Lent, the season of purification, over the other seasons of the year. Yet the heart of the Christian life remains the same — in the mysteries before the morals. Though Easter’s sacramental emphasis might feel strange to us, it is necessary for our souls that we follow the ancients and reencounter the foundation of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.
We live in a world where many claim to be shepherds. We’ve got loads of leaders both religious and not, gurus, caretakers, CEOs and visionaries, each claiming to have something good for us, to have our best interests at heart.
“Incredulous for joy” is the phrase that St. Luke uses to describe the disciples’ reaction when they saw the risen Lord. Could this really be happening? Could he really be back from the dead — not just a ghost, not just a figment of my imagination, but truly back from the dead, standing right before me in the flesh?
Lent is a time to ponder deeply how far down Jesus stooped when he chose to dwell among us. Jesus lowered himself in the most surprising ways to demonstrate his love and to fulfill the Father’s plan of freeing us from sin. This stooping down, or self-emptying, marked the whole of his earthly journey but was particularly made manifest in his birth in a stable and baptism in the Jordan River. It comes to a spectacular crescendo, as we know, on the cross.
Each year, Palm Sunday presents the church with a cornucopia of Scripture for reflection. We begin the liturgy this year with Mark 11:1-10 and finish with the entirety of Mark 14-15. An understatement: There is quite a lot to take in.
