Ordinarily, many people try to make some provisions for those we will leave behind when we die. Jesus, who became one with us in our human family and was fully engaged in all that we are and do, was no exception.
Some of us are concerned with anticipating and attending to the financial needs of loved ones and, to that end, we pass on to them whatever wealth we’ve accumulated through the years. Sensitive to the emotional well-being of our dear ones, we may also leave messages not only a last testament but a note, a letter or even a personal journal or a videotape. Admittedly, none of these efforts, can negate the stark reality of death, but all may, in some small way, diminish its pain.
Before he departed from his disciples in death, Jesus also attempted to ease the burden of those whom he would leave behind, not by providing for their financial, emotional or psychological needs but by seeing to their spiritual well-being. Indeed, Jesus left behind his very self so that his presence would continue to embrace, enable and empower his followers. Three weeks ago on Easter’s Third Sunday, the risen Jesus, as recorded in Luke’s gospel, explained that his abiding presence could be known and experienced in the breaking open of the scriptural word and in the breaking of the bread of the Eucharist. As they realized his presence among them, the disciples burned with love and affection in their hearts.
Six weeks ago, on Easter’s second Sunday, the risen Jesus ,as recorded in the gospel of John, breathed upon his own and said that from then on they would be inspired and impelled by his abiding presence to bring peace and forgiveness to world.
In today’s gospel, John tells us that the abiding Spirit of Jesus within every believer sets each of us at odds with the world. It is a Spirit of truth whom the world does not recognize or accept. Nevertheless, and despite all odds, that Spirit has been promised us; that the Spirit will remain with us as Jesus’ living legacy until he returns. Jesus will not leave us orphans!
That Spirit was described by Jesus as another Advocate. Thus, the Holy Spirit as our advocate is one who represents our interests, like a defense attorneywho is sincerely concerned with our well-being. As our Advocates, the Son and the Spirit will support us in all our efforts, strengthen us against every adversary, and sustain us through every trial. It is the Holy Spirit who will assure the permanence and the power of the community’s faith in the risen Jesus. For Jesus solemnly promises that he will not leave us orphans.
An interesting anecdote: From the 1850’s through the 1920’s, “Orphan Trains” carried almost 400,000 children from New York City to adoptive families in the Midwest. These children, often given up by newly arrived and desperate immigrants or found living in the streets, were resettled with families who could feed and clothe them and who welcomed their presence on the still underpopulated frontier of a growing nation. The pathos of the trains’ departures was repeated at stops along the way, when children would be taken off and “displayed” for prospective adoptive parents.
Jesus promised his disciples that he would not leave them orphans. We have been chosen! And like an older brother, Jesus is going ahead to prepare a home for us. And an unbelievable gift is about to be given us! What Christ has by nature, we are granted as gift—a share in the divine life – in the interior life of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit! Their love surrounds us, supports us, nourishes and sustains us. When the Father sees us, hears our prayers, God sees and hears the divine Son. We are not orphans; we are God’s beloved children, and our train is bound for glory! Pentecost is in two weeks.
Jesus, we’re moving to the close of our Easter season now.
We feel the excitement in the air ~ and some sadness too.
You spoke these words to your disciples at the Last Supper;
they would not have understood at the time what you were saying or what you meant.
You also said,
“Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me. And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him.(14:21).”
Help us to observe your commandments, Jesus. They are simple: “Love one another as I have loved you.”
And allow us to know you and the Father.
To you and the Father and the Holy Spirit, our Advocate, be all honor and glory, now and forever.
Amen.
And now before you go, since this is also Mother’s Day, here’s a hymn to Our Lady. Click Here.
Be sure to turn up your speakers and enter full screen.
And here are today’s Mass readings, if you’d like to reflect on them. Click here.
This Sunday is also Mother’s Day. We wish our mothers, grandmas, aunts–living or deceased , friends, intendeds– a very special day! But how? The business folks would have us spend lots of $ on our mothers. For what? Stuff they probably don’t want or need anyway. My suggestion is to get a single rose, give them a big hug–if you’re able, and do something simple and creative. And don’t forget to honor Our Blessed Mother too!
How ’bout putting a comment on my blog and let me know what you think.
THE FEAST OF ASSUMPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY
AUGUST 15th, 2020
In 1950 Pope Pius XII declared as a dogma of the church something that Catholics have believed throughout the church’s history ~ that Mary was taken up into heaven, body and soul to sit at her Son’s side for all eternity. In that document Pope Pius had this to say . . . .
It was fitting that she who carried the Creator as a child at her breast, should in the divine tabernacles. It was fitting the spouse whom the Father had taken to himself should live in the divine mansions. It was fitting that she, who had seen her Son upon the cross and who had thereby received into her heart the sword of sorrow . . . should look upon him as he sits with the Father.
It seems impossible to think of her, the one who conceived Christ, brought him forth, nursed him, held him in her arms, and clasped him to her breast, as being apart from in body after this earthly life ….. Hence the revered Mother of God … finally obtained, as the supreme culmination of her privileges, that she should be preserved free from corruption of the tomb and that, she might be taken up body and soul to the glory or heaven where as Queen, she sits in splendor at the right hand of her Son, the immortal King of the Ages …..
And so we may hope that those who meditate upon the glorious example Mary offers us may be more and more convinced of the value of a human life entirely devoted to carrying out the heavenly Father’s will and to bring good to others [and that] in this magnificent way all may see clearly to what a lofty goal our bodies and souls are destined. Municetissimus Deus—The Apostolic Constitution; i.e.The Most Provident God. By Saint Pius XII defining the dogma of the assumption of the Asumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
On August 22nd, the octave of the Assumption we celebrate a minor feast ~ the Queenship of Mary. I honor her as my queen. Now this may sound a bit odd, my friends, but I take her shopping with me. I thanked her for my lovely condo. I signed the documents for the condo on August 15th, 2008, so this year I will be in this lovely home for twelve years now and when I celebrate holy Eucharist on her feast day I will thank her and our dear Lord once again.
Here’s a bit about this Feast (or Solemnity, as we call it in the liturgy.)
First of all, it’s a celebration of the body and an exaltation of womanhood.
Everyone was quite startled when the distinguished psychiatrist Carl Jung, who was not a Catholic, said that this declaration about Mary was “the greatest religious event since the reformation.”
Here’s the entire text of what he had to say. You ought to read this; what he says is truly amazing coming from a psychiatrist and a non-Catholic!
The promulgation of the new dogma of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary could, in itself, have been sufficient reason for examining the psychological background. It is interesting to note that, among the many articles published in the Catholic and Protestant press on the declaration of the dogma, there was not one, so far as I could see, which laid anything like proper emphasis on what was undoubtedly the most powerful motive: namely the popular movement and the psychological need behind it. Essentially, the writers of the articles were satisfied with learned considerations, dogmatic and historical, which have no bearing on the living religious process.
But anyone who has followed with attention the visions of Mary which have been increasing in number over the last few decades, and has taken their psychological significance into account, might have known what was brewing. The fact, especially, that it was largely children who had the visions might have given pause for thought, for in such cases, the collective unconscious is always at work …One could have known for a long time that there was a deep longing in the masses for an intercessor and mediatrix who would at last take her place alongside the Holy Trinity and be received as the ‘Queen of heaven and Bride at the heavenly court.’ For more than a thousand years it has been taken for granted that the Mother of God dwelt there.
I consider it to be the most important religious event since the Reformation. It is a petra scandali for the unpsycholgical mind: how can such an unfounded assertion as the bodily reception of the Virgin into heaven be put forward as worthy of belief? But the method which the Pope uses in order to demonstrate the truth of the dogma makes sense to the psychological mind, because it bases itself firstly on the necessary prefigurations, and secondly on a tradition of religious assertions reaching back for more than a thousand years. What outrages the Protestant standpoint in particular is the boundless approximation of the Deipara to the Godhead and, in consequence, the endangered supremacy of Christ, from which Protestantism will not budge. In sticking to this point it has obviously failed to consider that its hymnology is full of references to the ‘heavenly bridegroom,’ who is now suddenly supposed not to have a bride with equal rights. Or has, perchance, the ‘bridegroom,’ in true psychologistic manner, been understood as a mere metaphor?
The dogmatizing of the Assumption does not, however, according to the dogmatic view, mean that Mary has attained the status of goddess, although, as mistress of heaven and mediatrix, she is functionally on a par with Christ, the king and mediator. At any rate her position satisfies a renewed hope for the fulfillment of that yearning for peace which stirs deep down in the soul, and for a resolution of the threatening tension between opposites. Everyone shares this tension and everyone experiences it in his individual form of unrest, the more so the less he sees any possibility of getting rid of it by rational means. It is no wonder, therefore, that the hope, indeed the expectation of divine intervention arises in the collective unconscious and at the same time in the masses. The papal declaration has given comforting expression to that yearning. How could Protestantism so completely miss the point?
I was amazed and thrilled when I discovered this text and again when I’ve just now re-read it. And I’ve always loved to pray and sing these words from the preface of the Mass of the day:
Today the virgin Mother of God was assumed into heaven
as the beginning and the image
of your Church’s coming to perfection
and a sign of sure of hope and comfort for your people
on their pilgrim way.
Mary is the first disciple of her Son.
She is the one who said Yes! “Be it done unto me according to Your word.”
Each of us who bear witness to Christ give birth to him in our own way.
May we honor Mary on this wonderful feast day and enjoy this late summer weekend ~ safely, of course!
Now here before you go, are some young people in quarantine singing our old favorite hymn honoring our Lady “Hail Holy Queen enthroned above” Click here. And be sure to turn up your speakers and enter full screen.
Father Bob's Reflections 