This morning Saint Luke relates that the Apostles and disciples returned to the upper room and devoted themselves to prayer, waiting for the promise of the Father, the Holy Spirit. They were to be clothed with power from on high so
that they could witness to the marvel of the Risen Lord. And Luke says that Mary, the mother of the Lord, was there. Mary’s role in preparing
the disciples for the coming of the Spirit was very important indeed, for in
her the disciples could see that what they were waiting and praying for–
to be clothed with the Spirit– had already happened in Mary. The promise of
the Father had already clothed her with power, the power
that Jesus had: patient endurance; loving forgiveness; unshakable peace and
joy– all fruits of the Spirit’s presence. The disciples realized that being
clothed with the Spirit meant becoming something like Mary.
Mary’s role in preparing for the
Spirit goes deeper. She was like an open window given by the Spirit to gaze into
the very life of the Trinity. That is because like Jesus she had accomplished
the work the Father had given her to do. Her one desire, like that of her Son, was
to receive from the Father with grateful acceptance whatever he gave her; and once
received, to give back to the Father her whole self in order to glorify him. Gazing
through this window which is Mary, the disciples could glimpse the eternal life
to which the Spirit was calling them.
The Scriptures say that the disciples “devoted themselves to the teaching of
the Apostles and to the communal life, to the breaking of the bread and to the
prayers.” It was in the breaking of the bread at Emmaus that the two disciples first
recognized the Risen Lord. Perhaps something similar happened in the upper
room. During the breaking of the bread, the disciples not only recognized that
the Lord Jesus was present; but they recognized in Mary what the Spirit
intended them to become – one spirit with the Lord; “a chosen race, a royal
priesthood”…a people set apart to declare the marvelous works of the one who had
brought them out of darkness into his own marvelous light. In the
breaking of the bread the Spirit would bring forth the Church, patterned on Mary.
Excerpts from Father Vincent's homily for the Seventh Sunday of Easter:A.