Homily — Pentecost Sunday

“No one can say that ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit.” These words of St. Paul, simple as they are, open up a whole perspective on God’s plan of loving kindness for us. The whole purpose of Pentecost is to fully reveal what God has planned for us from all eternity, namely, to become sharers in the divine nature; to realize the profound mystery hidden in the proclamation that Jesus is Lord; and to live in the same Spirit as the Father and the Son. 

Jesus is Lord! These are the words that the Father wants on the lips of all his children. They are a confession of faith in the great love that the Father has for us by sparing not even his own Son for our sake. At times we can forget just how alienated our human race is from God. It began with the disobedience of our first parents in paradise and has spread to the ends of the earth. But our Father is well aware of this alienation and our rejection of his plan. But precisely to overcome this alienation – and only God could overcome it – the Father sent his Son, Our Lord Jesus, the perfect model of obedience, to take on our human condition and free us from our misery. The Father did not spare his own Son out of love for us, but above all to make known the greatness of his Son so that “at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

“If you (only) knew the gift of God…” Today this gift is revealed to us as it was to the Jews who were marveling at hearing in their own tongues of the mighty acts of God. And this is the mighty act revealed by the Spirit: Jesus has endured death, utter failure, in witness to the Father’s love for us. He was in total agreement with the Father’s plan, matching love for love. This is a truth we can rely on, and if there is any doubt, we have a solid proof: the resurrection. Jesus was vindicated. He could not be held by the throes of death because of his acceptance of the Father’s plan and the gift of his life to fulfill it. The Father raised him up and exalted him at his right hand. He gave him the promise of his Spirit, and then Jesus poured this Spirit out on us. This is what we now see and hear.

I started by quoting St Paul: “No one can say “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.” But what good would this mighty act have been if no one knew about it? It is the Spirit’s mission to ensure that this truth would be known by all; therefore, he gathered and brought forth the Church, the Body of Christ. It is through the Church that the Spirit communicates the mighty acts of God and thereby gives us a share in the divine nature. This has been God’s will for us from the beginning, “so that the grace bestowed in abundance on more and more people may cause the thanksgiving to overflow for the glory of God.” In this thanksgiving we live and move and have our being.

My brothers and sisters, “See what love the Father has given us” that we have become sharers in the divine nature and can proclaim that Jesus is Lord. This is the meaning of Pentecost and reveals the plan of God’s loving kindness. In a few minutes we will experience a new Pentecost when the Spirit descends on bread and wine and makes them truly become the body and blood of the Father’s only Son, Jesus Christ Our Lord. This is the mighty act of God that we celebrate today.

The Eucharist is a Burning Coal

Let us approach it with burning desire and with our hands folded in the form of a cross let us receive the body of the Crucified, and applying our eyes and lips and forehead let us partake of the divine coal, so that the fire of the desire within us might receive the heat of the coal and burn up our sins and illuminate our hearts so that by partaking of the divine fire we might be set on fire and deified.

JOHN OF DAMASCUS On the Orthodox Faith: Vol. 3 of the Fount of Knowledge

Insatiable Trinity

You, eternal Trinity, are a deep sea: the more I enter you, the more I discover, and the more I discover, the more I seek you. You are insatiable, you in whose depth the soul is sated yet remains always hungry for you, thirsty for you, eternal Trinity, longing to see you with the light in your light.

ST. CATHERINE OF SIENA The Dialogue

A Higher Communion

The goal of Eucharistic communion is a total recasting of a person's life, breaking up a man's whole ‘I’ and creating a new ‘We”.

JOSEPH RATZINGER Behold the Pierced One: An Approach to Spiritual Christology

Divine Fullness

Spiritual awareness teaches us that the soul has only one natural sense… shattered in consequence of Adam’s disobedience. But it is restored to unity by the Holy Spirit… In those who are detached from the lusts of life, the spirit, because it is thus freed, acquires it's full vigor, and can experience in an ineffable manner the divine fullness. It then imparts its joy to the body itself… “In him,” says the psalmist, “my flesh has blossomed afresh’.

DIADOCHUS OF PHOTIKE Gnostic Chapters, 25

Homily — Ascension of the Lord

  In the Acts of the Apostles St. Luke describes the departure of St. Paul from Ephesus after Paul had spent some years there as a very sad farewell from the Christian community who gather on the shore to hug and kiss St. Paul and to cry and lament that they will probably never see him again.  Yet, when St. Luke writes in his gospel about the definitive departure of Jesus into the heavenly realm, he describes the disciples as returning afterward to Jerusalem filled “with great joy.”  How could this be?  In a general audience in 2013, Pope Francis asked and answered this question. He said, (quote) “Precisely because, with the gaze of faith they understand that although he has been removed from their sight, Jesus stays with them forever. He does not abandon them and in the glory of the Father supports them, guides them and intercedes for them.” (unquote) Today’s gospel of Matthew affirms this same truth: “I am with you always, until the end of the age.”  Years ago in the liturgy, the Paschal Candle was removed from the sanctuary on Ascension night as a symbol of Christ’s departure, but now, with a better realization of the meaning of the Ascension, the candle remains in place through the entire paschal season. The Ascension does not celebrate the absence of Jesus, but rather a glorious increase in his presence to us, with us and in us—I would say, even through us who are in Christ.  Think of St. Patrick’s Breastplate prayer where Christ is in him, around him in every direction, in everyone and everything and every situation. 

          In the reading from Ephesians this morning, we heard about the Father of Glory raising Jesus from the dead,and “seating him at his right hand in the heavens.”  The Ephesians letter tells us that the same power that did all that for Jesus is the same surpassing greatness of power at work in each of us and all of us together who believe.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that (quote), “Christ’s Ascension in heaven signifies his participation, in his humanity (IN HIS HUMANITY!), in God’s power and authority. Jesus is Lord: he possesses all power in heaven and on earth… As Lord, Christ is also head of the Church, which is his body.”   You, we, all of us are the body of Christ. In a section of Ephesians that we did not read this morning, the writer of the epistle in a remarkable way tells us that we have also ascended with Christ—it is a redemptive ascent from out of the depths to which we sink in sin. Listen to this quote from chapter 2 of the epistle: “All of us lived among the disobedient in the desires of our flesh; following the wishes of the flesh and the impulses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love he had for us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, brought us to life with Christ (by grace you have been saved), raised us up with him, and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus.” (unquote) Yes, the same divine power that was at work in Christ to raise him from the dead and seat him at the right hand of the Father is at work in us who believe.  In Baptism we all became one body with Christ Jesus and with one another.  We are all being lifted up as one body the Church with the head of that body, Jesus Christ our Lord. 

        In a few moments, as the Eucharistic Prayer begins we will hear Father Damian say, “Lift up your hearts!”, and we will respond, “We lift them up to the Lord!”  The fact is that the Lord is lifting us up in the Eucharist into the heavenly realm.  The Eucharist makes present to us the Paschal Mystery of Christ: that is the lifting-up of Christ on the Cross, the lifting-up of Christ from the dead and the lifting-up of Jesus to the right hand of the Father.  During his time on earth Jesus assured us sinners who believe in him that when He is lifted from the earth He will draw all to himself. All people. All. All are lifted up, drawn to Jesus who sits at the right hand of the Father. Our life in the glory of God brings the Paschal Mystery to its fullness. Alleluia! 

A Person or a Tool?

When a tool controls someone, that person becomes a tool: a commodity on the market and, in turn, a piece of merchandise. Only genuine relationships and stable connections can build good lives.

POPE LEO XIV  Jubilee of Youth, August 2, 2025