June 5, 2011 - Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord
Reading 1 - Acts 1:1-11
In the first book, Theophilus, I dealt with all that Jesus did and taught until the day he was taken up, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. He presented himself alive to them by many proofs after he had suffered, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. While meeting with them, he enjoined them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for “the promise of the Father about which you have heard me speak; for John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”
When they had gathered together they asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” He answered them, “It is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has established by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
When he had said this, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight. While they were looking intently at the sky as he was going, suddenly two men dressed in white garments stood beside them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven.”
Responsorial Psalm - Ps 47:2-3, 6-7, 8-9
R. (6) God mounts his throne to shouts of joy: a blare of trumpets for the Lord.
All you peoples, clap your hands, shout to God with cries of gladness,
For the LORD, the Most High, the awesome, is the great king over all the earth.
R. God mounts his throne to shouts of joy: a blare of trumpets for the Lord.
God mounts his throne amid shouts of joy; the LORD, amid trumpet blasts.
Sing praise to God, sing praise; sing praise to our king, sing praise.
R. God mounts his throne to shouts of joy: a blare of trumpets for the Lord.
For king of all the earth is God; sing hymns of praise.
God reigns over the nations, God sits upon his holy throne.
R. God mounts his throne to shouts of joy: a blare of trumpets for the Lord.
Reading II - Eph 1:17-23
Brothers and sisters: May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you a Spirit of wisdom and revelation resulting in knowledge of him. May the eyes of your hearts be enlightened, that you may know what is the hope that belongs to his call, what are the riches of glory in his inheritance among the holy ones, and what is the surpassing greatness of his power for us who believe, in accord with the exercise of his great might, which he worked in Christ, raising him from the dead and seating him at his right hand in the heavens, far above every principality, authority, power, and dominion, and every name that is named not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things beneath his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of the one who fills all things in every way.
Gospel - Mt 28:16-20
The eleven disciples went to Galilee,to the mountain to which Jesus had ordered them. When they saw him, they worshiped, but they doubted. Then Jesus approached and said to them, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”
Reflection – Part I, “The Holy Spirit”
In these final days of the Easter season, as we celebrate the Ascension of our Lord and prepare for the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, our focus shifts from the Resurrected Jesus to the community of believers and the early years of the Church. Luke entitles the second volume of his book The Acts of the Apostles to demarcate the conclusion of Jesus’ earthly ministry and the start of a new phase in the life of the Church. The Acts of the Apostles records the disciples’ efforts to carry out Jesus’ command to, “Go and make disciples of all nations,” detailing the fervent missionary work of Paul, the impassioned evangelization of Peter, and the growth of Christianity from a small sect of Judaism to a burgeoning major religion with local Churches in nearly every major city of the known world.
Luke’s account of the early Church emphasizes the role of the Holy Spirit in the rapid expansion of Christianity. Acts opens with Jesus instructing the disciples to remain in Jerusalem and to await the arrival of the Spirit, with whose help they were to continue the mission of spreading the Gospel. Soon after Jesus ascends, the disciples receive the Spirit as Jesus had promised, and they immediately set about their ministry.
In our own day, we profess the ongoing role of the Holy Spirit in guiding us, believing that the current leadership of the Church, the successors of those first apostles who received the Spirit at Pentecost, continues to be imbued with this Spirit. Too, we maintain that all baptized followers of Christ receive the same Spirit, and that we are infused with a particular array of gifts when we are confirmed as adults in the faith. But for all this formal expression of belief in the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit, very few of us know what any of that actually means.
What IS the Holy Spirit, anyway? Is it, as is conjured by older titles, a “Holy Ghost,” i.e. Casper with a halo and the ability to manifest itself in the form of fire? And what, exactly, does the Holy Spirit DO? Claiming that we are guided by the Holy Spirit, or that we have received special gifts from the Spirit, should strike us, upon anything more than a superficial consideration, as uncommonly difficult to articulate let alone comprehend. As with all theology and discussions of the Divine, at a certain point, language simply fails, and we can be no more precise than to couch our limited understanding in increasingly convoluted and unfamiliar terms. The constraints of cognition and language are, perhaps, nowhere more obvious than in a substantive conversation about the nature and role of the Holy Spirit. If a non-Christian friend asked you to describe the Holy Spirit, what would you say? If you attest that you received the gifts of the Holy Spirit at Confirmation, and the friend then asks you if you felt “wiser,” more “knowledgeable,” and more “courageous” the day after the Bishop had sealed you with chrism, would you affirm that, indeed, you did? And if you did not, what did it mean to “receive” these gifts?
All of us Christians are familiar with the formula, “Three Persons in one God.” But we do not often pause to unpack what, specifically, that indicates in theory, nor what it means for our lives, in practice. When most Catholics hear the term, “God,” they think first of God the Father. Indeed, many picture an older white male with a grey-white beard, seated on a golden throne and surrounded by choirs of flaxen-haired angels. And when we pray to God who is Father, most of us impute to this Divine Person attributes of our own fathers or other father-like figures we have known (teachers, coaches, mentors). In calling God, “Father,” that is, in ascribing to God the persona[1] of “father,” we mean to describe God as an individual who gives us life, who loves us unconditionally, and who cares for our well-being. We mean, too, that God holds authority over us; that we are compelled to obey His commands; and that He judges us with justice. But we likewise wish to convey that the Father’s justice is tempered with limitless mercy and indescribable compassion, and that, even when we have failed to live up to the Father’s expectations, He forgives us wholeheartedly and enthusiastically.
Jesus even explicitly encourages us to call upon God as “Father.” So we get that God is Father. Too, since we profess belief in the Incarnation, we assert that this same God also became human in the Person of Jesus. And while many of us have a great deal of work to do on our personal relationship with the Second Person of the Trinity, we can at least explain the concept of the hypostatic union[2] and the importance of it for human life. After all, many of us can relate better to a human being who, like us, shared experiences of rejection, of loneliness, of frustration, and of great, even unspeakable, suffering. So we get that God is Father, and God is Son. But we still struggle with this idea of God as Spirit.
And because we do not really understand the Holy Spirit, we probably do not pray to the Third Person of the Holy Trinity very often. In fact, do you ever pray explicitly to the Spirit, the way you might strike up a dialogue in prayer with the Father or with Jesus? When you are stressed out at work, praying for patience; or when you are deeply anxious about the outcome of some medical tests for a family member—do you ever talk to the Spirit of God? If you are anything like most Catholics, the answer is probably, “Not usually,” or, “No, never.” Because before you open up to someone, before you share the contents of your soul, you have to KNOW that person, and most of us simply do not KNOW the Holy Spirit. So how do we go about getting to know WHO—for the Spirit is a WHO—this Third Person is?
The word used in the New Testament to refer to the Holy Spirit is paráklētos, a Greek term that meant, “called in to assist.” It later came to describe an individual who was called in to consult on an endeavor, to console in a time of distress, or to work as an advocate on behalf of one in a court of law. Perhaps another way to describe the Spirit would be to refer to, the “Holy Consultant,” “Holy Consoler,” or “Holy Advocate.” Or, in modern terms, the “Holy Advisor,” the “Holy Best Friend,” and even (the seeming oxymoron), “Holy Lawyer.”[3] After all, if you are facing an overwhelming personal crisis—a mortgage foreclosure, a divorce settlement, the sudden termination of employment—that is who you will need, will you not? An advisor whom you trust to help you make good decisions, a best friend to comfort and support you throughout the process, and a lawyer who will fight relentlessly for your cause.
So when Jesus tells the disciples that He will be returning to His Father in Heaven, He promises that this does not mean that God is abandoning them. Jesus insists that God will continue to interact with His followers, to guide them, to impart wisdom, to supply courage, the way that Jesus was able to do in a when He physically walked the earth among the disciples. The First Person of the Trinity refers to God, who creates and sustains the cosmos; the Second Person of the Trinity refers to God, who took on our humanity and redeemed our race by His suffering, death, and resurrection; the Third Person of the Trinity, the one who is sent at Pentecost, refers to God, who is “called in to assist,” to God, who comforts us in our moment of despair, who counsels us in instances of indecision, and who advocates on our behalf in times of trial. God who is… best friend… trusted advisor… and relentless lawyer on our behalf. It is to this God whom we pray when we say, “Come, Holy Spirit…”
Next Week: Part II, “Pentecost—The Birthday of the Church”
Questions for Reflection
1) In your own understanding, what does it mean to say that Jesus, “ascended into Heaven” body and soul? What is the significance of this, and how does it relate to your life as a Christian?
2) How do you think the disciples felt, standing there, watching their newly-resurrected Lord and Teacher disappear from their sight, knowing that it was now their job to carry out the mission He had begun?
3) If you had to describe the Holy Spirit to someone wholly unfamiliar with the basics of Christianity, how would you do so? Are there any parts you would struggle especially with?
4) Do you remember your Confirmation? Do you remember which “Gifts of the Holy Spirit” (Hint: there are 7) you received? Did you feel any different after receiving them? If so, how? If not, what do you think happened?
5) Do you ever pray to the Holy Spirit? Do any of these other titles for the “Advocate” resonate with you?
[1] The theological term, “Person” comes to us from the Latin word, persona, which originally meant “mask.” Persona evolved to take on a legal definition in Rome, indicating the role one occupied in society, e.g. lawyer, soldier, father, brother, husband, etc. Therefore, one individual human could have multiple personae, i.e. roles in society. When a man was standing in the court room pleading a case, his persona was that of lawyer. When this same man went home to his children, his persona was that of “father.” And if he, like a modern father, were to coach his son’s little league team, his persona in the dugout would not be that of lawyer or of father—though he is those things—but of “coach.” One individual human being; multiple ways of being in relation to the world around him, all of them continuing to exist, even when they were not active. So the lawyer does not cease being a lawyer while he teaches 8 year olds how to throw a curveball; that persona simply is not active in that setting.
[2] The Hypostatic Union is the technical term in Christian theology for the consubstantial nature of Jesus as both fully God and fully human. It indicates that these two natures are in made one in the Person of Jesus.
[3] Joking.
