Union with Christ in the Mission, Fourth Thursday of Easter, April 30, 2015

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Visitation Convent of the Sisters of Life, New York, NY
Thursday of the Fourth Week of Easter
Memorial of Pope St. Pius V
April 30, 2015
Acts 13:13-25, Ps 89, Jn 13:16-20

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

Another, shorter version of the homily was given at Holy Family Parish. To listen to it, please click below:

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

• We pondered yesterday the meaning of consecration in the choosing of Saints Paul and Barnabas for the work of the Lord. The Holy Spirit asked for them to be set apart for the work to which he had summoned them, and after prayer, fasting and the laying on of hands, they set out. Today in the Gospel, Jesus says, “I know those whom I have chosen.” He calls us to himself, he consecrates us, so that united with him, we can be sent out, just like Paul and Barnabas, to wash others’ feet, to announce to them his Word, to call them to communion with him and us. Jesus says at the end of today’s passage something truly amazing. He swears an oath and says, “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.” This is not an “intentional” point but in some deep way a sacramental-ontological one: the reason why in receiving us others receive Christ is because they’re receiving us in communion with Christ, and because of that communion they’re always receiving God the Father because Christ is in perpetual communion with the Father.
• When we are sent out by Christ to proclaim the Gospel, we’re not just proclaiming words but in our own flesh we are bringing Christ — or at least we’re supposed to be! — and hence in accepting us they are welcoming Christ’s Mystical Body that is in organic communion with Christ the Head of that Body. We see this with in the scene with Saints Paul and Barnabas in today’s first reading (which we’ve extended to embrace the first reading of Friday of the Fourth Week of Easter as well, since we’ll be celebrating the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker). Saints Paul and Barnabas are asked by the leader of the Synagogue in Antioch in Pisidia, “My brothers, if one of you has a word of exhortation for the people, please speak.” God wants us all to have that “word of exhortation” from him and wants us to give it. We’re called, like St. Peter wrote in his first letter, always to be willing to give the reason for the hope we contain within us. In the Psalm today, we prayed, “Forever I will sing the goodness of the Lord” and professed that “through all generations my mouth shall proclaim your faithfulness.” The Lord wants us to be so inspired by our consecrated communion with him that we’re always singing of his goodness, to us, to the world, to others, and to proclaim his fidelity to all his promises. Many times in life rather than singing of the Lord’s goodness, we’re can give into temptations to complain monotonously about our problems, or to criticize, or to spread bad news rather than Good. Many times rather than giving a word of encouragement we give discourses of discouragement. Rather than sharing a word of exhortation, we’re often deflating others with pessimism. Rather than praising God’s faithfulness, we’re praising ourselves. A Christian who grasps the meaning of Easter, who lives a new life in communion with the Lord, is a Christian who’s singing with joy even in the midst of challenge and hardship, and that’s the type of hymn the Lord wants all of us to be singing each day in chorus.
• In the Gospel, Jesus, as part of the many ordination instructions he gave on Holy Thursday that would be remembered and put into action after his’ resurrection, talks about the messenger and the one who sent him, saying as I mentioned above that “whoever receives the one I send receives me and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.” Jesus to some degree — we don’t want to take it too far, but we do need to ponder his words — is making others’ reception of the Father and the Son who he sent at least partially dependent on their receiving those whom he sends out, meaning us. And how can they receive us — and the Son and the Father as a consequence — unless we give ourselves to be received? To give this word of exhortation, to sing the goodness of the Lord, to proclaim his faithfulness, to continue Jesus’ mission as his ambassadors, this is meant to become the driving force of Christian life. We must make the effort that Christian missionary work requires.
• We see that effort concealed in the beginning of today’s first reading. Pamphylia, where Saints Paul and Barnabas landed, was a malaria infested swamp. It would be like traversing the Everglades. But they did it. Then there was a perilous journey 3,600 miles up a rock face to Antioch in Pisidia, one of the ancient world’s most dangerous climbs. To make matters worse, the path upward was full of bandits. But Paul and Barnabas courageously persevered because of their hunger to share the Gospel, to share God, to share the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and the whole Church with those they had never met. Proclaiming the Gospel, as we know from the sagas of so many missionaries in every age,  is seldom easy work. It requires zeal. It requires effort. But as Jesus says in today’s Gospel, “If you understand this, blessed are you if you do it.” The question for us is: if Paul and Barnabas could overcome so many dangers to proclaim the Gospel to total strangers, will we overcome the much smaller impediments to proclaim the Gospel to our family, friends and neighbors, to the people who call on the phone, to the people who visit the Visitation Mission? What efforts are we making to share our faith, to share our communion with Jesus? At the end of our life, what “Acts” will be able to be written about our own missionary journeys? Will a heavenly chronicler be able to list the swamps we’ve traversed and the mountains and obstacles we’ve surmounted?
• The second thing we learn in today’s readings is a basic outline of how to give this word of exhortation and sing of the favors of the Lord. Odds are that when we proclaim the Gospel, we’re proclaiming it to a group other than Jews in the Diaspora! But St. Paul gives us a model we can apply to every situation. Today he beings a 26 verse homily. Today we have the first 13 verses combined with the 8 that would have been heard tomorrow. I’d encourage you as your homework for the day to meditate over the last five. But throughout this “word of exhortation,” we see how St. Paul puts the Gospel into a context of what is relevant for his listeners.
  • He begins by discussing his listeners’ hopes and expectations, their longing for a Messiah, so that he can show how Jesus is the fulfillment of their deep desires. He shows there’s a purpose to history.
  • Second, he declares forthrightly that Jesus is the fulfillment of their hopes. He discusses that even though Jesus is their hope, many, in blind folly, rejected him, but that rejection didn’t have the final word, because God raised him from the dead, showing that hope placed in him is never in vain.
  • Then Paul makes that news actual, bringing us to a moment of decision. He describes how this is Good News, joy, for all of us who accept Jesus and begin to live by his ways — and bad news for those who disobey that summons.
• This is the pattern of proclamation for us in every age. We begin with the context of people’s aspirations and hopes, how Jesus fulfills them, how God has triumphed over people’s sins and rejection in the past, and how he wants us to share in that victory, but we must choose to respond to that incredible offer. St. Paul would elsewhere describe his own conversion and how he was among those who initially opposed, but came to grasp this life and that’s what motivated him to share Jesus with others, to exhort them to learn from his mistakes, to sing of the favor of the Lord’s mercy and invite others to join that chorus of praise. Likewise it’s from our experience of mercy, from our failure to correspond fully and yet being given a second, or third, or 70th times 7th chance, that we find the passion to share that same gift.
• The saint we celebrate today, because of his union with the Lord, sought to live this way. As a member of the Order of Preachers, Antonio Ghislieri sought always to share a word of exhortation with others, but the problem was that the Church in many places had become corrupt. There were problems with some of the popes, with many of the bishops, with so many priests and religious orders and with the faithful people. He became a great reformer and as the Church was seeking to respond to the scandals that led to the Protestant Reformation by means of the Council of Trent, the Cardinals elected him to implement Trent’s decrees. He reformed the way the Church prayed the Mass, prayed various of the Sacraments, and prayed the liturgy of the hours. He helped form the first seminaries to train future priests (before they were trained in apprenticeships, and if the priest teacher weren’t holy, it would be hard to produce future holy priests). He traversed over the course of his life various ecclesial swamps and political rock cliffs. One of the most famous happened at the Battle of Lepanto, when Christians battled Muslims off the coast of Greece as Muslims were seeking to invade Europe. Pope St. Pius V led the Church in prayer to the Blessed Virgin Mary by means of the Rosary and God gave him images of what was happening in battle hundreds of miles away, images that proved true when triumphant Christian sailors returned to Rome months later. He helped to restore the hope of the Christian people by his words of encouragement and by his faithful and holy life. We’re all called to do the same. Just as much as the Lord said about him, “I know those whom I have chosen,” so he says it about us. He wants to enter into an intimate friendship with us now. He wants to establish a communion with us so deep that others to whom he sends us will be able to sense the love of God loving them through us.
• As we begin our day the way St. Pius V would begin his, at Mass, we ask through his intercession that we may be inspired to sanctify all the work that the Lord has given us to do today, especially that most important work of spreading the Gospel. Jesus gave us the words of today’s Gospel during the Last Supper, right after he washed his disciples’ feet. As we prepare to enter in time into that new and eternal Passover and receive Jesus’ very risen life inside, we ask that, like Pius V, we will be “blessed” by “doing this in memory” of Him as we are sent out by him, with him, to encourage the world!

The readings for today’s Mass were: