5th Sunday of Easter
Collect
May 14, 2017
Acts 6: 1-7
John 14: 1-12
Holy Cross, Champaign, Ill.
“Almighty, ever-living
God, constantly accomplish the Paschal Mystery within us…” (Collect).
So we prayed in the
Collect, in part, 10 or 15 minutes ago.
We pleaded with God—powerful and full of life—to empower us with the
divine life of his Son Jesus. This life
is available to us on account of Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection—the
paschal mystery, the Easter mystery. We
enter that mystery thru Baptism and all the other sacraments, and we grow in
our grasp of the mystery whenever we encounter Jesus in his sacred Word, the
holy Scriptures.
Our prayer, however, is
that the paschal mystery be “accomplished” in us: that it be carried out, that it be effective,
that it be fulfilled, or as the prayer itself says, that it “bear much fruit.” Being baptized or confirmed, or receiving the
Eucharist, is a part of the divine process, but not the whole process of this
accomplishment. More is required.
More in required even in a
temporal sense. For our prayer is that
God accomplish the mystery “constantly.”
It’s ongoing. It’s lifelong. It’s not finished until we die, until we come
to that home in heaven that Jesus is preparing for us (John 14:2-3). So be patient, folks, regarding your
spiritual growth, and keep progressing with Jesus along the way that he has
marked out for us thru his paschal mystery.
Note, too, that we pray
for God to accomplish the mystery
within us. It’s not something we can do
for ourselves. The work of our salvation
is done by Jesus, acting on us and in us thru his Holy Spirit. He needs our cooperation, our “yes” to his
work, as he needed the Virgin Mary’s “yes” when the angel Gabriel came to her
and asked her to become the mother of our Savior (Luke 1:26-38). But God does all the heavy lifting.
We prayed that, “under [God’s]
protective care,” we might “bear much fruit.”
At the Last Supper Jesus told the apostles that he’s the vine and
they’re the branches shooting off the vine; as long as we’re attached to him,
we can bear abundant fruit (John 15:4-5).
Elsewhere in the Scriptures, the people of God are called to the Lord’s
vineyard, which he cultivates so that it will bear good fruit (Is 5:1-7; Matt
21:33-41; cf. Matt 20:1-16).
What is the fruit that God
expects of us? To ask the question
another way, in keeping with the beginning of the Collect, how do our lives show
that we’re immersed in Jesus’ paschal mystery?
The reading from the Acts of the Apostles informs us. The apostles note that the Church has a
2-part program: to pray and preach the
Word of God is one part; to serve the needs of the poor, personified in widows
in our passage, is the other part.
So our Christian lives
must show the fruit of prayer: giving
praise and thanks to God and interceding on behalf of the world. When St. Peter instructs us that we must “be
built into … a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God
thru Jesus Christ” (1 Pet 2:5), prayer of praise and intercession is one of the
things he means. You are a Christian
priest; you pray.
Our Christian lives also
must show the fruit of sound teaching or public witness to God’s Word.
And our Christian lives must
show the fruit of practical charity, social justice—such as works for the poor,
the hungry, the homeless, migrants, the sick, the elderly, children in the womb,
prisoners, the environment, education, health care, rescuing the victims of
trafficking, delivering people from terrorism and other forms of oppression,
helping people deal with addictions, etc.
Obviously, no one can do all of that.
In Acts, you might say the work is divided up among various branches of
the vine that is Christ. Make sure you are a fruit-giving branch. That’s our collective prayer today
(“collective” and “collect” are related words!).
Finally, the Collect prays
that—always with God’s help—we might “come to the joys of life eternal.” Jesus is preparing a place for us. The place is in his Father’s house, his
Father’s mansion, where we’re meant to dwell with him (John 14:2-3) and see the
Father’s face—see the Father in person (cf. 14:8-9).
Think how excited you’d be
to meet some hero of yours in person and get to spend time with him or
her. How many of you went to the Garth
Brooks or Tom Petty concert? It’s
different in person than on TV, right?
How many parishioners got excited last Sunday because Lovie Smith came
to 10 o’clock Mass (so I was told later—and I was the celebrant!)? How many of you wanted to go see the Cubs’
world championship trophy when it came to town—a thing, not a person? I’m
excited because next month Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez, a Salesian who’s
coordinator of the Pope’s council of 9 cardinals, is going to ordain 4 new SDB
priests in N.Y., and I’ll be there either concelebrating or taking photos. (The cardinal has done ordinations for us
several times and visited New Rochelle on other occasions; he’s delightfully
friendly and approachable.)
How can we compare any of
that with being with God—the God who created us out of love, who is our Father,
who so loves us that he sent Jesus to save us (cf. John 3:16), who so ardently
desires to have us in his company, part of his family, forever? We pray for that joy, which the Father wants
to give us even more than we want to receive it!
May the paschal mystery be
accomplished in each of us! If we must
part physically in a few weeks, may we—as St. Thomas More said on the
scaffold—“meet merrily in heaven,” where our health, our virtue, and our joy
will be perfect and unending.
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| Execution of Sir Thomas More (detail), by Antoine Caron |
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