4th Sunday after Easter, May 6, 2012

Fourth Sunday after Easter, May 6, 2012

Epistle – 1 James 1: 17-21

Gospel - John 16: 5-14

Christ promised He would be with us always, even to the end of the world. (Matthew 28: 20) So why did He go back to His Father in Heaven? As He told the Apostles, it was necessary that he go, “For if I go not, the Paraclete [the Holy Ghost] will not come; but if I go, I will send him to you.”

It was as if Jesus said: if I do not withdraw My Body from your eyes, I cannot through my consoling Spirit lead you to your spiritual vision, that is, to faith. So the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, brings us this blessing: that Jesus, being removed from our eyes, is now revealed to our purified inward vision, our faith, in the form of God in which Jesus remains equal to the Father. What does that mean in plain talk?  

If Jesus had stayed on earth, people, being people, would naturally tend to worship Jesus the Man, rather than Jesus, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. In India they tell a story of an angel who appeared to Buddha and said, “Tell me how many years you wish on Earth, and they will be granted to you.” And Buddha without hesitation said, “Eighty years.” His followers later asked him, “Why only 80 years when you could have had a thousand?” And Buddha told them, “Because if I live longer people will be interested in how I was able to live so long and would not pay attention to  what I taught.” So let us remember that it is God we worship, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Let us remember that the Word of God,  Jesus, taught us by His words and by His example how to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

Jesus continues in today’s Gospel, “because I have spoken these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart.” Now, some consider that a pious life is filled with sorrow and melancholy, but nothing could be further from the truth. Pious Christians enjoy interior joys and consolations, even in bad times. This joy a peace of mind that has its foundation in a good conscience, in the grace of the Holy Ghost, and in the expectation of eternal joy in heaven. These joys and consolations are so great that these Christians would not exchange them for all the joys and happiness in the world.

Compare all the pleasures and joys of men since the beginning of the world with the happiness of the saints in Heaven. All of earth’s pleasures are more insignificant than a grain of sand when compared to the whole earth. St. Augustine says: "This glory, this beauty, this majesty, which will be our [happiness], surpasses our hope and love, our wishes and desires. This [happiness] may be acquired, but it cannot be sufficiently appreciated: it can be merited, but not described."

To help us reach that heavenly joy, Jesus has given us a gift. St. James the Apostle reminds us in the Epistle today that “Every best gift, and every perfect gift is from above: coming down from the Father . . .”  This gift from Above is the seven Sacraments which give us grace, that supernatural gift which allows us to gain heaven. The Epistle reading ends by saying, “with meekness receive the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.” It is because Jesus left us physically and sent the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, that we are able to hear the Word and engraft it into our hearts and souls.  If we obey His wishes we come to understand how Jesus combined two separate operations into one. On one side is the humble submission of man, and on the other side the great generosity of God in His gift of grace through the Sacraments.

The seven Sacraments agree with (Wisdom 9: 1) where we are told that God has built a house and it rests on seven pillars. God also gave us a type and a foretaste of Christ’s Church in the tabernacle of Moses – a magnificent candlestick with seven lamps to provide light (Exodus 25: 37). Also, in John’s vision of heaven in Apocalypse 1: 12, 16 [KJV Revelation] he sees God surrounded by seven candlesticks and holding seven stars.

Satan mimics God with the seven deadly sins, which he uses to make us his slaves. Our Lord tells us, too, that when an unclean spirit leaves a man he returns with seven spirits more wicked than himself (Luke 11: 24-26). We also read that Jesus drove seven devils out of Mary Magdalen (Mark 16: 9). At the end of time, Christ’s arrival will be announced by seven trumpets (Apocalypse 8: 2), and that seven angels will empty seven vials upon the earth. These vials contain the wrath of God (Apocalypse 16: 1).

Those of us who want to be with Christ forever love these merciful Sacraments. Everything we and society need has been provided for in these seven. Christ calls us from death to life by Baptism and Penance (Confession). He strengthens us in the supernatural life by Confirmation, the Eucharist and Extreme Unction. He secures to His church both priests and people by Holy Orders and Matrimony. The Churches of the East, even though they broke from Catholic unity centuries ago, have retained the seven. But Protestantism proved itself to be a pretended reformation by breaking the sacred seven Sacraments, and separated itself from the spirit of the Christian religion. The doctrine of the Sacraments cannot be denied without denying the true faith. If we want to be a member of His Church we must receive this doctrine as coming from Him who has a right to insist on our humble submission to His every word.

To those who believe this, the Sacraments appear in all their divine beauty and power: we understand because we believe. This belief is the fulfillment of the text from Isaias: “Unless ye believe, ye shall not understand.” (Isaias 7: 9).     +++

 “How lovely are Your tabernacles, O Lord of hosts that my soul longs and faints for the courts of the Lord."

(Psalm 83: 2, 3)

           

We Celebrate the Traditional Tridentine Latin Mass