A Homily for the Fourth Sunday after Easter

​+ In this almost ‘strange’ period between the bodily resurrection of our Lord, His glorious Ascension, and Pentecost, the Church’s Sacred Liturgy does not spare us from the difficulties and mixed emotions experienced by the apostles. How fundamentally life-changing it was personally to encounter the risen Christ—to touch and to eat with the glorified Christ who had been so publicly humiliated and executed on the Cross. How could they ever again doubt? How could they now fail to believe?
 
And yet, in the glow of this radiant light, the Lord speaks of “going away”, and causes thereby great sadness in the hearts of the apostles—more than understandably. It is perhaps worthwhile for we who have ‘read to the end of the story’ as it were, to stop and ponder just what they were experiencing, feeling and coming to realise at this time: Jesus of Nazareth was, indeed is, the Messiah, the Christ of God. He just walked out of His own tomb, having been cruelly and publicly executed. The holes of the nails and the spear remain on His body—His glorified body—still. How, after all of this, could He now leave and seemingly abandon us? What mixed emotions the apostles must have had. Just as they were coming to terms with the reality of the resurrection, the resurrected Christ Himself announces His forthcoming disappearance!
 
The Lord explains the necessity of His departure, but again one could imagine that this theory of a coming Paraclete may have been less than consoling—and, in prospect, even more difficult to comprehend. Yet it was the Lord speaking. Did one apostle say to another: “Hey, He just rose from the dead. Trust Him—He is the Messiah, after all!” Quite possibly. Quite probably—after all, they had ‘seen and believed’, as it were.
 
And so, the apostles come to believe that there is more still yet to come: “When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth,” Our Lord instructs them. “Who? When? How?” we can almost hear arise in their minds, with the voice of faith adding her gentle “Trust Him”.
 
My brothers and sisters, we have read to the end of the story. We know of the realities of the Ascension and of Pentecost and can give answers to these questions. But in plunging us into the midst of these mysteries, our Holy Mother the Church is not seeking to augment our general knowledge, or even to congratulate us on knowing the answers. Rather, like a wise mother, she is bringing us back to the heart of our faith, so that today—particularly in and through our encounter with the Risen Christ in this holy Mass—we too might come to trust Him more, even when times are extraordinary, and what is to come is unclear.
 
For whilst we have, please God, received the Gift of the Holy Spirit in the Sacrament of Confirmation, His impact and activity in our lives may yet be impeded by our lack of faith. Our self-will or pride may impede us from being guided by Him into the light of truth. Our doubts may linger sufficiently long to miss the opportunities He provides for us to respond to God’s call—leaving the good we alone are called to do, undone.
 
Indeed, our lack of faith may find the gifts given to us by God the Holy Spirit dormant within us. Yet, as St James teaches us in this morning’s epistle: “Every good endowment and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with Whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth that we should be a kind of first fruits of His creatures.”
 
By the power of God the Holy Spirit we are called to be the first fruits of God’s creatures, for we have received His grace in abundance, not because we deserve it, nor because we have somehow stolen it for our own purposes, but because Almighty God, in His loving Providence, has freely bestowed it upon us, for His purposes.
 
Certainly, we experience difficulties and mixed emotions as did the apostles. But like them, we are called to faith. Yes, the world, and even the Church at times, adds much that clouds this mixture, but the light shone by the resurrected Lord allows us to see through and beyond such obfuscations and deceptions, no matter who has signed them off.
 
We do not have Lord’s earthly body to which to cling, but He is with us entirely—body, blood, soul, and divinity—in the sacrament of the Most Holy Eucharist: an almost a greater gift, if that were possible. As we prepare to receive Him from this altar this morning, let us beg that increase of faith which is so necessary if the Paraclete He will send is to be able to work in and through us for His glory and unto our salvation. +

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