4th May 2008 EASTER VII
Fr David Cherry
Acts 1 : 6 - 14 ; I Peter 4 : 12 – 14 & 5 : 6 – 11 ; John 17 : 1 – 11
Those opening words from the Golden Sequence : “Come thou Holy Paraclete, and from thy celestial seat, send thy light and brilliancy.”
He has come to share in your life so that you may share in his. The Ascension signifies where we truly belong - as the hymns tell us – in the heavenly places.
“This is no matter of words: a thing to be listened to
carelessly, because we have heard it often before. The death and
resurrection of Christ is ever a call upon you to die to time, and to
live to eternity. Do not be satisfied with the state in which you
find yourselves; do not be satisfied with nature; be satisfied only
with grace. Beware of taking up with a low standard of duty, and
aiming at nothing but what you can easily fulfil. Pray God to
enlighten you with a knowledge of the extent of your duty, to enlighten
you with a true view of the world. Beware lest the world seduce
you. It will aim at persuading you that itself is rational and
sensible, that religion is very well in its way, but that we are born
for the world. And you will be seduced, most certainly, unless
you watch and pray . . . You must conquer the world, or the world will
conquer you…”
So preached John Henry Newman in 1837. Bracing stuff.
Bracing stuff is important if we are to see our way clearly. In
these nine days between the Ascension of the Lord and the coming of the
Holy Spirit at Pentecost the disciples are in retreat. Prayerfully,
they wait for the Holy Spirit, pondering all that they had seen and
heard.
And perhaps in this Novena, they pondered the longing of Jesus which St
John gives us in today’s gospel as the High Priestly Prayer of
the Lord. We hear the internal thoughts of God the Son for the
nascent Church. He prays for us. We hear what he longs for
us, what our true destiny is : to share in, be included in the
love of the Father for the Son, the love of the Son for the Father
– all in the unity of the Spirit which binds them together so
that they can witness to God.
Rightly, we want and expect that the Christian revelation is for us.
There is this motion of God towards us, a God who, in Christ, appears
in human form among us to make known the True God. This is a
revelation of a God who is at our disposal (if you like), utterly for
us, accepting and generous towards us a God, a God who is neither
calculating, weighing up our worthiness nor reciprocal in the way he
loves. (You see: No! God does not say, resentfully, as you
or I might: “You only come to me when you want
something.” That’s what we are sometimes like.)
But God is like this, free, unconditional in his love, for a
purpose. He has come to share in your life so that you may share
in his. The Ascension signifies where we truly belong - as the
hymns tell us – in the heavenly places. We celebrate
this before mass - how we came to share in God’s life through
Baptism.
Now here is something to contemplate in this Novena: God’s
longing for you and me, but also: how to live in God. Like the
disciples in the Cenacle after the Resurrection, we soon realise that
you cannot inhabit this kingdom, this culture of God and of his love,
unless you are possessed by his Spirit, unless you are infused with his
life.
God is at their disposal, but God is also asking something of them or
he is merely another ‘consumable’. Share in my life.
Share, also, in my mission. “…you shall be my witnesses in
Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the
earth.”
And His Spirit will guide and strengthen and provide all that is necessary.
For this to take shape in a real life like mine or yours means you need
to be among others who are inhabiting this life so that it might rub
off, inform who you are. You will need to be among those who are
celebrating it, making it real by the lives they lead, living with
prayer and worship, a life of virtue, striving to live with justice for
others and the earth, becoming less acquisitive and controlling in
orientation. You will need to be among those who are allowing
God’s Spirit to run them, inform their notions of what is
ultimately true, good and moral.
You will be seduced into thinking this is a matter of words warns
Cardinal Newman. And it is not very fashionable to be going on
about it. “You must conquer the world, or the world will conquer
you.” To put it another way, unless you and I are
prayerfully considering how we belong to God and his Church, we can
take our birthright too lightly, miss out, and sit too lightly to what
God is asking of us. Keen on the privileges, lax when
it comes to responsibility.
“Be sober, be watchful” writes St Peter, “Your
adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking some one
to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith.”.
So let us use this Novena, these Nine Days, considering what God is
making known of himself to us; considering in prayer what God is asking
of us: how we might live for God.
Fill thy faithful who confide / in thy power to guard and guide / with thy sevenfold Mystery
Here thy grace and virtue send / Grant salvation in the end / And in heaven felicity. Amen. Alleluia.