The Spirit’s Roadblocks, Fifth Saturday of Easter, May 24, 2014

Fr. Roger J. Landry
St. Bernadette Parish, Fall River, MA
Saturday of the Fifth Week of Easter
May 24, 2014
Acts 16:1-10, Ps 100, Jn 15:18-21

To listen to an audio recording of this homily, please click below: 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

• Today in the first reading we come to one of the truly pivotal events in the history of the spread of the Gospel, but it’s something that may initially surprise us. St. Luke tells us in Acts that Paul, Silas and Timothy traveled through Phrygia and Galatia wanting to go spread the Gospel in the “province of Asia” around Ephesus, but they were “prevented by the Holy Spirit.”  A little later they tried to go into Bithynia, a north central province of modern day Turkey “but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them.” They were trying to spread the Gospel, to plant the seeds of faith, something that they and we both should anticipate that the Holy Spirit would have facilitated and blessed. But he did the exact opposite. He closed the doors. Why he did this appears a little later. After they have arrived in Troas, Paul had a dream of a Macedonian standing before him imploring, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” The following morning the three sought passage there at once, concluding that God had called them to proclaim the Gospel to them as well. Macedonia was in Europe, at the very north of Greece. The Holy Spirit shut the doors to Ephesus and to Bithynia precisely so that they could take the Gospel sooner to Europe, where the seeds of the Gospel would flourish. (Other Christians would continue the expansion into the province of Asia and into Bithynia, and Paul himself would eventually get to Ephesus).
• There’s a very important spiritual lesson here for all of us. Many times when we’re doing good things for the Lord, we can presume that God wants what we want, and when he seems to slam a door in our face, we wonder why he treats us that way. But often he forcefully closes one door so that we will notice that he wants us to walk through another. Docility to the Holy Spirit means that we’re docile even when he prevents us from doing something good for God so that he can have us rather do something that will advance his kingdom in the way he knows is more needed. We lose a job in which we were doing a lot of good and can’t figure out why, until much later we see with God’s help that he wanted us to transfer to something else to build his kingdom. I had tried to apply to become a seminarians for my home Archdiocese of Boston, but the vocation director wouldn’t even give me an application. It seemed like such a contradiction, but if I had been accepted to the Archdiocese, then I would have never come to the Diocese of Fall River, likely never have received the type of great seminary formation with which I was blessed and never had a chance to get to know and serve you here. One of my fellow seminarians was a priest of the Diocese of Charleston, SC, a very gifted, pious southern gentleman. On the Feast of the Epiphany back in 2001, however, he was killed by someone running a stop sign. And now I pray he’s carrying out his priesthood according to the Order of Melchizedek in the eternal Macedonia. We just never know what the Holy Spirit has in mind. Our task is to accept everything, whether seemingly adverse or propitious, and allowing him with faith to blow as he wills.
• We see a tremendous illustration of this in Jesus’ words in the Gospel, which conclude the 15th chapter of St. John, which we’ve been pondering all week. It seems at first glance a very surprising conclusion. Jesus began the chapter with the image of the Vine and the Branches, promising that if we abide in him and him in us we will bear much fruit. Then he goes on to tell us how much he loves us — just as much as the Father loves him. He tells us how to remain in that love by keeping his commandments, especially his command to love others in the same self-sacrificial way he has loved us. He informs us that he has revealed to us everything he heard from the Father. He calls us his friends. He discloses that he has chosen us — out of all the rest — and appointed us together with him to bear fruit. He has told us that whatever we ask the Father in his name the Father will hear. And he stated that he has told us all of this so that his own joy — the joy of the happiest person who has ever lived — will be in us and our joy fulfilled.
• Yet, after all of these tremendously consoling revelations, he tells us today that the world will hate us and persecute us just like it hated and persecuted him. It seems like such a non-sequitur, but it’s not, because Jesus revealed everything ahead of time so that even when we’re suffering on account of his name, even when we’re experiencing the brunt of their opposition to him, to his word, to the Father, he wants us not to forget that we’re still attached to him on the Vine, that he’s still abiding in us, that he still loves us as the Father loves him, that we’re still his friends, that we’re still chosen, and that we’re abiding in his love as we lay down our lives in love and prayer for those who are persecuting and hating us.
• It’s obviously a temptation for us to think the opposite. When we’re doing the Lord’s work, we figure that he’s going to make everything turn to gold. But that gold comes only after the crucible. And the same Spirit sometimes allows us to suffer, as he did the martyrs, because he knows that the way we’ll proclaim the Gospel in suffering may bring far more people to Christ than if we proclaimed the Gospel normally without suffering and persecution.
• Today, as we recall that Jesus said all of these words on Holy Thursday as he was preparing to receive on Calvary all the hatred and persecution that the world could muster so that our hearts wouldn’t be troubled or afraid. It’s here that he was giving us his love to the full. It’s here that he was attaching us to him on the Vine. It’s here that the Holy Spirit constantly comes to help us open the door to Christ and then follow Christ the way out to wherever the Holy Spirit leads, glorifying the Lord with our life.

The readings for today’s Mass were: