Hi Everyone,
Updates:
1. The 9 am Mass today was offered for the deceased members of the Giovanni and Grace Musumeci family, and the 11 am Mass for Deborah and Thomas Lloyd, on the occasion of their anniversary.
2. The Mass videos are available on the parish facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/
3. Extra stuff this week:
Tuesday and Thursday will have music, saints, or a special Ascension event.
4. A special bonus liturgical music video that sets to music a line from the Gospel: https://www.youtube.
Reflection (Based on Homily, part 2)
(http://www.usccb.org/bible/
Yesterday we looked at the evangelization mission of Philip the Deacon to the Samaritans, and the move to the responsorial psalm that proclaims Let all the earth cry out to God with joy. This exhortation to joyous proclamation is the case even though, as Jesus says in the Gospel, if you love me, you will keep my commandments.
This tension between saving, joyous news on the one hand and the requirements of the law and commandments is a central paradox of the Christian message. On the one hand, the Gospel is the good news, the message of salvation, the joyful annunciation. On the other hand it contains high morals, difficult duties, the way of perfection. On the one hand it is gift, on the other it is laborious effort. To know and live in the combination of both is a formidable challenge.
The psalms and the saints, though, give us a little glimpse into the resolution. The psalms constantly thank God for the gift of the law. Notice how it combines the two sides into one, calling the law a gift. The psalms rejoice at having receiving the knowledge of God's way. His precepts and commandments are a delight to the psalmist. Similarly, the saints are those who delight in the law of the Lord. So what we begin to see is that the opposition or tension only exists when our hearts are outside the law. When we are outlaws, the law are an imposition. Whereas for the in-laws, the law is a delight.
One of my professors in college, speaking on this same theme, summarized growth in holiness by calling it a transformation of desire. He meant that holiness is not simply a matter of transforming one's conduct, but rather the process (hardly the result of one single choice!) by which our very desires are transformed. What we want, or perhaps better, who we want to please, shifts in our hearts.
But if the saints point to the finished product, Jesus reveals the way to holiness by speaking of the Holy Spirit. He does not mention commandments on their own. He immediately follows with the promise of the Holy Spirit, since it is the Spirit that transforms our hearts. As St. Paul says, with the Holy Spirit the love of God has been poured into our hearts. Our desires cannot be transformed without the transforming love from the Holy Spirit.
Returning to the idea that for the in-laws, the law is a delight, it is significant that the Holy Spirit is called is called the Spirit of adoption. He brings us into God's family. He puts the law into our hearts, and our hearts into the law. He makes us in-laws. He makes us family. He makes us part of his family.
May we open our hearts to receive anew the Holy Spirit at the approaching feast of Pentecost!
God bless,
Fr. Rensch