We’re reading the Gospel of Matthew in our lectionary these days. Jesus calls his followers to a mountain in Galilee as a teacher and a healer. They are blessed who follow his way, he says in his Sermon on the Mount. Not only will they be blessed, but the world will be blessed. (Monday, Week 10)

“You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.”  The world is better when we act his way; it’s filled with light and life. (Tuesday, Week 10) “Let your light shine before others that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.”

What does today’s world think of that teaching of Jesus? The moral system most popular in our society doesn’t respond very well to the Sermon on the Mount, I think. For many today moral thinking is built on personal choice. What’s good for me, what do I want, how can I get it, no matter what. Personal choice is the moral compass of many today. 

We’re influenced by this thinking more than we think. That’s why the psalm after today’s reading is important: “Lord, let your face shine on me…The revelation of your words sheds light, gives understanding to the simple…Steady my footsteps according to your promise.”(Psalm 119)

Yes, God helps those who help themselves. Yes, God gives us a mind to figure things out. Yes, we need to choose the way we see. But like the sun that rises each day, God is there as our Teacher and Guide. We need to ask God to “steady my footsteps according to your promise.”

For the next 6 months we’re living in “Ordinary Time”, the time of the Holy Spirit. We’re not orphans. We’re living in the time of the church and also the time of our world. The Holy Spirit came to renew the face of the earth.

The universal call to holiness is one of the most important teachings of the Second Vatican Council. It was one of Pope Francis’ favorite topics which, in his letter on Christian holiness, “Gaudete et Exultate,” he explores in homey concrete style.

Don’t miss “the saints next door,” he says.  “These witnesses may include our own mothers, grandmothers or other loved ones (cf. 2 Tim 1:5). Their lives may not always have been perfect, yet even amid their faults and failings they kept moving forward and proved pleasing to the Lord.”

“I like to contemplate the holiness present in the patience of God’s people: in those parents who raise their children with immense love, in those men and women who work hard to support their families, in the sick, in elderly religious who never lose their smile. In their daily perseverance I see the holiness of the Church militant. Very often it’s a holiness found in our next-door neighbors, those who, living in our midst, reflect God’s presence. We might call them “the middle class of holiness”. (7]

“Each in his or her own way,” we’re called to holiness, the Vatican Council says. Each of us has to discern God’s call, to find our own path, to discover the gifts God gives. We don’t have to follow someone else’s path or have someone else’s gifts. To be holy means to grow with the gifts we have from God.

Saints? Are saints only Catholic then ? If we believe the Holy Spirit renews the face of the earth, then holiness must be there in those who are not Catholic or Christian, but still holy people. Yes, the world is like that field of weeds and wheat, but the Spirit still sows good seed everywhere.

Ordinary time begins on Monday with a feast of Mary, Mother of the Church, mother of saints. Faithful hearer of the Spirit, she knows the meaning of daily patience. To use a term from Pope Francis, she’s Mary “next door.” She’s with us day by day. She’s at home with the day by day saints. She’s Mother of the Church. She is also Mother of all.

Prayer

O God, Father of mercies,
your Only Begotten Son, as he hung upon the Cross,
chose the Blessed Virgin Mary, his Mother,
to be our Mother also.
Grant, we pray, that with her loving help
your Church may be more fruitful day by day
and by the holiness of her children,
draw to her embrace all the families of the earth..
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

The lectionary, calendar and other revisions of the church’s prayer after the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s are the work of biblical, liturgical and catechical scholars, mostly from Europe, who were taked with providing a fuller experience of the liturgy for Catholics throughout the world. It was a monumental work and we’re still absorbing it. 

The lectionary offers readings, psalms and prayers for Sundays and every day of the year. For Sundays this year we’re reading from the Gospel of Luke..

For weekdays we will  be reading from Matthew’s Gospel till the 22nd Week, then we’ll read from Luke’s Gospel. Ending the church year, we’ll read from the accounts of the last time from all the gospels. The lectionary follows this same cycle of gospel readings every year, and so following the lectionary yearly helps us become familiar with the gospels.

The first readings weekdays for ordinary time in our lectionary are arranged in a two year cycle that includes readings from the Old Testament and writings from the New Testament, especially the letters of St. Paul. For the next two weeks we will be reading from Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians.

For myself I find following the lectionary a good way to pray. It’s a day by day way of praying. It’s a way of learning the faith seasonally instead of systematically. Year by year, day by day, it reveals the mysteries of God. It’s a school that’s open every day, not confined to a classroom or a catechism or a theology book. It’s for slow learners who forget and have to be reminded year by year. That’s most of us.

I find too that this approach also seems to offer an answer to what’s happening in daily life, in my personal life and in the big world that’s changing so fast today. Not a perfect answer, but enough to see God’s hand in it all. 

You can find the readings from the lectionary online at the website of the US Catholic bishops. www.usccb.org   I usually link to the readings in this blog, which follows the lectionary.

For this week’s homily please watch the video below.

Today’s the Feast of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples of Jesus. If you notice our readings today describe two different times the Spirit comes. Our first reading, from the Acts of the Apostles, describes the Holy Spirit coming at Pentecost, a Jewish feast 50 days after the Passover, when great numbers of pilgrims came to Jerusalem from all parts of the world to celebrate the feast. They receive the Holy Spirit and become messengers of the Spirit to the world they came from.

 Our gospel describes Holy Spirit coming, not at Pentecost, but Easter Sunday when Jesus’ disciples were locked in the upper room in Jerusalem in fear.

 Jesus, risen from the dead, comes to them and breathes on them: “Receive the Holy Spirit,” The Spirit brings them forgiveness and peace. They can leave that room and go out into the world they’re fearful of. The Spirit is with them. 

Where are we today if we could see the Spirit coming to us? I think a lot of us today are like those disciples in the upper room–  afraid  of the world we live in. We may think our world is unmanageable. We’re closing our doors and shutting the windows. We’re afraid. In our country that fear is making us distance ourselves from the rest of the world. 

Today, the Feast of Pentecost, we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit, whom  Jesus promised, not only to his disciples but to us and to the whole world. The Spirit comes not just to help us as individuals,  the Spirit’s sent to our world. “Come, Holy Spirit, and renew the face the earth.”

The way we know the Holy Spirit is different than the way we know Jesus.  Jesus is God come to us in human flesh; he’s like us. He’s born a child, lives as a human being, he reacts to events and people around him, he speaks in human words, he suffers and dies and rises. However distant his time from ours is, we see and hear him human like ourselves. 

But it’s more difficult to describe the Holy Spirit.  The scriptures use symbolic ways to describe the Third Person of the Trinity. Our gospel today describes the Spirit as the breath of Jesus Christ. Jesus breathed on his disciples and gave them the Spirit. He promises that the Holy Spirit will remain with us to “complete his work on earth and bring us the fullness of grace.”

Our first reading todays says the Spirit is a driving wind, tongues of fire empowering those to whom he comes to speak with wisdom, with new words, and to reach out to the whole world and act bravely, not fearfully.

The Holy Spirit is described in other ways in the New Testament and in our prayers. The Spirit’s a dove who rests on Jesus when he’s baptized in the Jordan by John. I find myself  particular attracted that this image of the Holy Spirit.

There’s a bird feeder outside where I live that’s attracts a lot of house sparrows, but doves are regular visitors too. I notice when a cat comes or a hawk flies over, the sparrows scatter immediately; the doves are the last to go and first back at the feeder. Now, are they simple?  You could say also they’re fearless. They’re not afraid of their enemies.

Think about the story of Noah in the ark. Noah wonders if the flood waters are gone, so what does he do ? He sends out a dove, who returns with a twig from an olive plant. There’s life there, you can get out of the ark. The dove is not afraid of floodwaters and dangerous places. 

The dove, the Holy Spirit, leads Jesus into the desert, the realm of Satan, after his baptism. The Spirit is not afraid of chaos or evil, but recreates the world.  The Holy Spirit is with us today. We don’t have to be afraid..

St. Cyril of Jerusalem has a beautiful description of the Holy Spirit in one of his sermons.How describe the Holy Spirit? He uses two things we know well: water and light.

 “The water I shall give will become a fountain of living water, welling up into eternal life. This is a new kind of water, a living, leaping water, welling up for those who are worthy.

But why did Christ call the Spirit water? Because all things depend on water; plants and animals originate in water. Water comes down from heaven as rain, and always the same, it produces many different effects, one in the palm tree, another in the vine, and so on through all of creation. It does not come down, now as one thing, now as another, but  remaining essentially the same, it adapts itself to the needs of every creature that receives it.

In the same way the Holy Spirit, whose nature is always the same, simple and indivisible, gives grace to each one as he wills. Like a dry tree whose roots search for water, we search for the water of the Spirit.  Although the Spirit never changes, its effects are many and marvellous.

The Spirit makes one teach and another a listener. He gives one the power to cast our devils and another the patience to bear with evil. The Spirit strengthens one’s self-control, shows another how to help the poor. The Spirit’s action is different in different people, but the Spirit is always the same. The Spirit reveals his presence in a particular way for the common good.

 The Spirit comes gently, known by his fragrance, not a burden, but light, very light. Rays of light and knowledge mark his approach. With the tenderness of a true friend, the Spirit comes, a protector who saves, heals, teaches, counsels, strengthens, and consoles. The Spirit comes first to enlighten the mind of one who receives him, and then, through him, the minds of others as well.”

Our weekday readings from the Acts of the Apostles and from John’s Gospel end on these last days of the Easter Season. Today’s reading from Luke describes Paul’s two final years in Rome (Acts 28:16-20,30-31), There he preaches to everyone who came to him “with complete assurance and without hindrance”, even though he’s under house arrest, and so the gospel is now preached in Rome, the center of the world.

Readings from John’s Gospel these last days end with Jesus’ prediction of Peter’s death and John’s role as a witness to the gospel, and the important reminder “There are also many other things that Jesus did, but if these were to be described individually, I do not think the whole world would contain the books that would be written.” (John 25 ) 

Strange, though, that Luke, who describes the death of Stephen the deacon in great detail, says nothing about the deaths of Peter and Paul. He certainly knew the circumstances of their martyrdom in 62 or 63 AD, some years before he wrote Acts.Why didn’t he write about it? It might have cleared up a lot of questions about their deaths that some modern historians have raised. 

Perhaps Luke did not want to draw attention to that tragic time when Nero’s persecution put so many innocent Christians to death? Not the time to open those wounds? 

We have the graves and remains of Peter and Paul at the Vatican and outside Rome’s walls, but no account of their death that someone like Luke could give. I wonder why he didn’t write about it.

More importantly, both Luke in Acts and John in his gospel want to remind us that following Jesus Christ means following him into the mystery of his death and resurrection.