THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH Her Doctrine and Morals Fourth Sunday after Easter 28 April 2013

The Sunday Sermon

Dear Friends,

The liturgical seasons are once again about to change – from the Easter season to Pentecost. With each change we are reminded of the similar change in the life of Christ and of the Church. Jesus is preparing the Apostles for his Ascension into Heaven and the coming of the Holy Ghost.

Change always has an element of fear because of the unknown. Christ is removing some of this unknown for the Apostles. Our Holy Mother the Church likewise is preparing us for the unknown. We pass through the liturgical seasons year after year and this change is fairly well known so it has lost much of the unknown and therefore the fear of these changes. There is however, a change in our lives from year to year as we progress in our material lives, and more importantly in our spiritual lives.

As the Paschal season is drawing to a close the joy of Our Lord’s Resurrection is fading as we anticipate His glorious Ascension into Heaven. This loss of Christ’s visible human presence is not a little disconcerting, but it is necessary for the Apostles as well as us. We are to follow in a broad sense in our spiritual lives the development of the Apostles. We began with Advent and the longing for the Savior. This longing and desire came to fulfillment in the Birth of Our Lord. We are born in sin and fall miserably daily but, through baptism we receive the Christ Child into our lives. As we approach the Epiphany our Faith brings the revelation of Christ more clearly into focus and joy fills our hearts as we make these small steps increasing our joy and more importantly our love for God. We are then reminded of the loss of the Christ Child in the Temple, as we are allowed to fall and Christ begins in this early stage to strengthen us through hardships. He is not away long and then we find Him again to strengthen and renew our Love, Faith and Joy.

Then we approach the Lenten season and are shown the pain and suffering that we have caused Jesus because of His profound love of us. We see His suffering and then our focus is upon our sins, faults, and failings that were the very cause of His sufferings. We follow Him to Calvary in the spirit of penance and mortification, repenting and confessing our sins, and shedding tears of contrition. Then we experience the joy of having our sins forgiven as our Holy Mother Church speaks to us of the Resurrection.

Now once again Jesus is going to hide Himself from us. He is about to ascend into Heaven. We begin to feel this loss already even before He is gone. He has given us Himself in the Holy Eucharist and He has promised us the gift of the Holy Ghost. We have experienced sin and forgiveness several times and hopefully have learned from each fall and made good use of the evil by learning humility and a distrust of ourselves, and a greater and greater love for God should be filling our hearts. We are in a way being weaned from the spiritual milk and soft food and are beginning to take more solid spiritual food.

We fear this progress and are eager to hold on to the pleasures of childhood we have known; and fear the difficulties that spiritual maturity will bring. But our Faith promises us that God is with us, He will not ever give us more than we can handle. As He said to St. Paul: “My grace is sufficient for thee.”

As we approach Pentecost we make the spiritual transition from adolescence into adulthood. When the Holy Ghost comes to us in the sacrament of Confirmation, we leave many of the easy joys and consolations of our youth, the immature love of childhood transforms step by step into more mature love of spiritual adulthood. The fears of hardships and difficulties fade away as the grace of Charity fills us more and more. With the grace of God we are able to accept, embrace, and even love the crosses of this life. With this maturity we are inspired to follow Our Lord to Calvary and even shed our blood with His. Suffering, sacrifice and even death loses its sting as the God of Love fills our hearts more and more.

This God of love has convinced this world of sin, and of justice, and of judgment. As we are filled with this Holy Ghost we too see more and more clearly the sins of this world and resolve to turn away from this world of sin. We see the justice in all that God does, in the crosses, suffering and misery in this world, as well as the apparent success of evil. We judge this evil world and the devils that guide and lead so many of this world on their way to Hell. We see the temporary success of the evil in this world knowing that these poor people only seek material success at the expense of spiritual success. God is just and is good – He gives them what they desire here and now; but there is Hell to pay for it. They do not love Him or wish to be with Him so they will forever be separated from Him.

May this cycle of the liturgical seasons spur us onward in our spiritual growth and progress so that we mature and develop our love for God. We must never fear to take the next spiritual step but with Faith and Hope grow in Charity from day to day and season to season.