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28 May 2023 – Pentecost Sunday
May 28 2023
Thara Benedicta
Key Message: Ask and Receive the Holy Spirit!! Homily: After the Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, what would have been the mind of the disciples? Their Lord had asked them to go and preach the Good News to the ends of the world. But He had also asked them to stay in Jerusalem and wait for the person of the Holy Spirit. So they wanted to achieve a big mission assigned by our Lord, but they understood that unless they received the Holy Spirit, who had been promised by our Lord, they could not begin the mission. Whether we realise it or not, we are also in a similar state. We need the infilling of the Holy Spirit especially, to preach the Gospel. Our Lord Jesus too did not begin His preaching mission till He was baptized with the Holy Spirit. Acts 10:38 says, "How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him." If our Lord Jesus Christ needed to how much more of the Holy Spirit will we mere human beings need? Our Mamma Mary also received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit during the Pentecost. She was also one among the first selected blessed Apostles to receive the Holy Spirit. Our Mamma Mary was one among the first Apostles to speak in tongues. In Luke 12:49 our Lord wished, “I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!" Our Lord Jesus wished we were already kindled with the burning fire of the Holy Spirit. Hebrews 12:29 says, "Our God is a consuming fire". Moses saw Almighty God as fire in a bush. John the Baptist said, "I am baptizing you with water, but another person is coming who will baptize you with fire." On Pentecost day, Mamma Mary and the Apostles were baptized with the Holy Spirit with tongues of fire. The Lord Jesus is bringing the great consuming fire - our Heavenly Father into all our lives (Mathew 3:11). Our God is a consuming fire, but for you and me, He will fill us. Malachi 3:2 says the Lord will be like a refiner's fire. The refiner's fire in our Lord Jesus affected Zacchaeus when He entered his house. It convicted Zacchaeus and purified him. If we are filled with the Holy Spirit, the Holiness in us will convict others of their sinful life, even without saying anything about their sins to them. Our Lord Jesus did not point out the sins of Zacchaeus to him. But still he felt convicted and said, "I will give half of my property to the poor. If I had taken more money from anyone, I will repay them four times". The Lord Jesus Christ is God's consuming fire. He is God's refining fire. And He is the one who will set us on fire. When this consuming fire comes, we will become like Jesus. "In this world we are like Jesus." (1 John 4:17) A related testimony, "When I attended a prayer meeting, after the adoration I went to meet the preacher. The preacher told me that he was able to feel the presence of the sin of unforgiveness in me. He was able to see two big and deep wounds in me and I was not able to forgive those who have caused it. It was the truth. I was deeply wounded and I was not able to forgive those who made me suffer so deeply". When we proclaim the Good News we need to completely depend on the Holy Spirit. In Proverbs 1:23, God says, "Then I will pour out my thoughts to you, I will make known to you my teachings." See how big this blessing will be. Our Almighty God who created the Heavens and the earth is promising to pour out His thoughts to us and He wants to teach us directly. God will teach us what He wants us to preach. Our Lord Jesus Christ gave us the preaching notes. But to interpret we will require the Holy Spirit. Let us pray for the gift of interpretation of the Holy Spirit. We will also need the gift of discernment of the Holy Spirit. There are three different kinds of spirits - God's Holy Spirit, man's spirit, evil spirit. When we say prophesy to someone we should be able to discern what kind of spirit is within us. If we do not have the spirit of discernment we will consider our own imaginations or ideas as God's ideas. Even the evil spirits will know that we are blessed with the gift of discernment. Like how the evil spirits trembled on seeing our Lord Jesus, they will tremble on seeing us. People are undergoing lots of suffering nowadays. Mainly, they are not able to make correct decisions. One of the important tasks for us is to give the suffering a proper word. Before beginning to pray we should first ask the Holy Spirit to fill us and then His gifts will start to operate. After that we will be able to receive answers to our prayers within seconds. The Holy Spirit showers on us the Gift of wisdom and Gift of knowledge. Colossians 2:3 says, "Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." In Exodus 31:1-5, God says something interesting. "See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills — to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of crafts." God gave the gift of wisdom and understanding to Bezalel to build the "Tent for the meeting, the ark of the covenant law with the atonement cover on it, and all the other furnishings of the tent". It is not only to preach the Gospel the gifts of the Holy Spirit are provided. It is for any task in God's will. Today God is eagerly waiting to bless us with the same gifts so that with the same gifts we can fulfil God's will. In Isaiah 55:7-9, our Lord says, "“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways”. When we have these two gifts, we can hear God speaking to us very clearly. Also we need to pray for people to be endowed with the gifts of the Holy Spirit. In Colossians 1:9, the Apostle Paul says, "We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way". It is very important to understand what the will of God is and live accordingly. All of us have to pray for the people in our care to receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit. God uses these gifts to take us to Heaven. Revelation 4:1,2 says, "After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, 'Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.' At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it." God called up the Apostle John. "John, come here. John went there in Spirit and in Spirit He saw the throne of Almighty God". John saw Almighty God face to face. Then Almighty God showed His plan and talked with John. We need to long to be filled with the Holy Spirit. If we can experience the promptings of the Holy Spirit, then we need to move on to the next level. We need to be sensitive to the initial promptings of the Spirit. If the Holy Spirit says, "Don't say that", don't say that. If the spirit of God warns, "Go this way", go that way. He is an active person so always have a listening ear. Our Lord Jesus said, "The world will not know Him, but you will know Him since He speaks to you". So we will know Him. The Spirit of God will speak to our spirit. We will hear the Holy Spirit's silent whispers in our heart. This first level will be like the first thirty years of our Lord Jesus before He got baptized with the Holy Spirit on the banks of the River Jordan. The second level of the Holy Spirit is to be completely infilled with the fire of the Holy Spirit. He will be like a burning fire in us. This is the life which our Lord Jesus wanted His anointed to have. It is simple, not complicated. Our Lord Jesus also says how it is possible in Luke 11:13. "If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” We have to ask our loving Father for the Holy Spirit with real zeal to work for the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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28 May 2023 – Pentecost Sunday
May 28 2023
Joe O'Leary
One in the Spirit 1. St Philip Neri (1515-1595), whose feastday was last Friday, May 26, was uniquely devoted to the Holy Spirit. “In the year 1544, shortly before Pentecost, he was as usual in the catacomb [of St. Calixtus], praying with more than ordinary fervor to be filled with the Holy Spirit, when suddenly there appeared to him a luminous sphere, like a globe of fire, which, entering his lips, passed into his breast. At the same moment he felt within him a flame of rapturous love. It seemed to glow like a material fire, so that unable to bear the heat which consumed him, he threw himself on the ground and tore open his dress. After a time, the heat abating, he arose, when an unusual joy thrilled through his soul, while at the same time his whole body was agitated by a strange palpitation; and as he placed his hand on his side just over his heart, he felt that it was swollen, though it did not give him the slightest pain." For 50 years after that Philip was a beloved figure on the streets of Rome, always overflowing with love and joy, with humour and laughter. Amid the grim conflicts and mutual persecutions of the 16th century he stands out as a humane and understanding man of dialogue. Philip was celebrated for his gift of warm friendship with people of all walks of life. His story prompts us to reflect on one aspect of the Holy Spirit's activity, namely, the way the Spirit "binds us together, with cords that cannot be broken" (to quote a hymn popular in the Charismatic Movement). 2. The last time I spoke with my dear mother she asked me a pointed question: "Is it really true that we will see again in Heaven the people we knew long ago?" I answered: "Well, the Church teaches the Communion of Saints." Does this not mean that our individual souls are not isolated substances but exist in communion with others? If we are always reaching out to draw near to others, to have intimate relationships with them, and if we think of solitary confinement as a cruel and unusual punishment (though one routinely applied in cruel penitentiary systems in the United States, China, and Japan), is it not because our individual identity is an unfinished sketch, and because we are living and growing within the vast community of the human race? We are amazed and overjoyed to discover just how vast that community is, when we find religious depths among Hindu, Buddhist, Shinto and other non-Christian worshippers, and when we recognize in them the speech of the Holy Spirit. The visitors to Jerusalem for Pentecost felt the same joy when they could miraculously understand the message of the Apostles: "Utterly amazed, they asked: 'Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs — we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!' Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, 'What does this mean?'" There is no barrier between the Holy Spirit and our own human souls. The infinitely transcendent God speaks to us in his Word, the Eternal Son, who becomes human in Jesus Christ, and he draws near to us more intimately in the Spirit, showing himself closer to us than we are to ourselves. The Blessed Trinity dwells in our hearts through the outpouring of the Spirit. "Great Paraclete, to Thee we cry, O greatest Gift of God Most High; O Fount of life, O fire of love. And sweet anointing from above." "Tu diceris Paracletus, Altissimi donum Dei, fons vivus, ignis, caritas, et spiritalis unctio." The sweet anointing seeps through our being, perfuming it with the aroma of Grace. It brings us communion with the Father and the Son. 3. The Spirit also breaks down the barriers between our individual existences, making us one with one another. We do not need to be barricaded in the fortress of our self, with its towers and turrets of pride, its moat of defensiveness (a filthy ditch), its porticullis ready to come crashing down at the least intrusion from another. The Church had become such a fortress at the time that John XXIII decided to open the windows and let in the fresh air (a famous image though it is hard to pin down if, when, and where he used it), inviting a New Pentecost in the Council he summoned. Pope Francis's Synodality initiative, which is slowly getting underway, is aiming at a similar renewal. The communion growing between the Christian Churches long divided by mutual suspicion and hostility, which has now been replaced by mutual friendliness and curiosity, and the deep human and spiritual dialogue that has grown up miraculously with Jews, Muslims, and the cultures and religions of Asia. "It is together that we go to Heaven, or to Hell" said Charles Péguy (1873-1914), magnificent Catholic poet and Christian theologian. "We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord." Buddhists tell us not to fret about our own individual egos but to join in the constant flow of life, promoting what is wholesome, undoing what is unwholesome and deluded. Jesus teaches us to die to self, but why? To live joyfully in "the glorious liberty of the children of God" (Rom 8:11), moved by "the Spirit of Truth who will guide us into all truth" (cf. Jn 16:13), is the lifestyle that the Lord wishes for us here and now. As to death, "if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you" (Rom 8:11).
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21 May 2023 – The Ascension of the Lord, (A)
May 21 2023
Thara Benedicta
Key Message: Ascend from the feeling of hopelessness and live a victorious life. Homily: In the forty days between Resurrection and Ascension our Lord Jesus kept giving His peace and overflowing joy, wherever and whenever He entered any place. The Apostles received the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ and they were peaceful and joyful. We know that the same peaceful and joyful Lord Jesus Christ lives with us now and gives us the same peace and joy. Are we able to rejoice in His peace and in His joy? Do not live under stress: Nowadays we live under lots of stress, unnecessary stress. We want so many things, without realizing whether we really require them or not. We want to be looked at as though we are at the top of the world wherever we are. All these are unnecessary. What did our Lord Jesus say? He said, "I give you my peace", "I give you joy" many times in the New Testament. But after receiving the peace and joy from our Lord Jesus too we are not able to experience the peace and joy. The enemy is very wise in making us worry about what we do not require. This is a good distraction tool used by the enemy. Whatever we think we should do, we will not be able to do. Because we get distracted by some other petty things. The enemy works for our destruction by using this distraction tool. He will force us to give up on our goals. Even our Lord Jesus was tempted by this tool of distraction thrice in the desert - Distraction was food when He was hungry, power when He had no strength and fame when He was not sought after. But He never gave in to any of them. The enemy knows that if we spend time with God, we will receive our energy, peace, power and joy required for the day. While God is yearning to spend time with us and we have good intentions to spend time with God in the morning, there is this enemy who looks for ways to keep us away from our God. We should recognize his ways and continue to pursue our way. We should not give up on spending time with God. There is nothing as important as spending time with our Lord Jesus. It took a long time for me to realize the enemy's way of this distraction tool. If we are not able to say formal prayers, let us praise Him from the bottom of our heart. If time permits, let us keep praising during the first half of the day mentally. We can start with the first half of the day. Then we will not be able to be without searching for His presence wherever we are. Pursue God, the enemy will stop pursuing you. Do not create your own battles: Let us know what is necessary and what is unnecessary. The truth is if we do not have any problems, we are very creative in creating new problems. A related testimony, "One day in the morning I was complaining about many things, till the Holy Spirit revealed to me that God had blessed me that time period as a battle free period. I couldn't even recognize that there were no battles around me". We got used to worrying that our mind does not know how to enjoy peace. Start small, fulfil gloriously: When God guides us towards something, let us go forward. The more we think, the more we will fear. We cannot escape feeling the fear, but we should proceed cautiously. Fear is provided so that we are cautious about everything. But it should not prohibit us from progressing forward or from trying something new. Do not lose the little opportunities: There is a planned time for everything. God blesses us to be a blessing to someone at specific times. We should not lose those specific opportunities. Esther 4:14 says, "For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews .... And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?”. We will realize that it is our time to help others or to go forward. The Holy Spirit will reveal it to us. Let us utilize those moments. Facing big storms courageously: When we are surrounded by real big problems in life, we tend to live discouraged. We do what we shouldn't do since it will add to our stress. We tend to stay awake and worry all night, instead of catching a good night's sleep, eat more sugar, chocolates, junk food instead of eating light food since our digestive system may not be good due to stress, don't workout instead lay on our couch lethargically. The most important thing - we get mad at God, who is the only one who can help us. Even if we run away from Him, He will run behind us and catch us. But how many more hardships would we face, since we are running away from Him? When the Israelites were out in the desert, God fed them with Mannah and water. Skipping food and water is not good for health. Drinking lots of water will flush out all the dirt from our body and will keep us healthy. None of the Israelites fell sick during the 40 years of desert journey. Fresh food and clean water were sufficient for their health. Don't sit discouraged. God is not sitting at the throne not knowing what to do when He looks at you. He already has a bright future in hand planned for you. There is a man mentioned in the Bible, who lost all his property, all his children in a single day. It looks like a drama - He is just sitting in a place and one by one his servants came running to him to give him extremely bad news, with the same note "All of this is gone, only I survived. I came here running to tell you". Even His servants looked down on him. Was there any reason for him to hope in God then. Job lost everything. But still he did not lose heart. Even then Job said, "Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him;" That should be our attitude in life. We should not lose our heart under any circumstances. Fulfilling our destiny: God did not take a xerox of someone and create us. He uniquely carved each one of us, and each one of us is a masterpiece. God declares in Jeremiah 29: "For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." When God created us, He also planned a prosperous future for us. So wherever we are now it doesn't matter. God has planned a splendid future for us. In Mark 4:35, our Lord Jesus told, "Let us go to the other side". In the middle there was a storm, the Apostles feared, our Lord Jesus stopped the storm, rebuked the Apostles for fearing and finally they reached the other side. They started without knowing about the storm that was planned for them in the middle. All they knew was that they were going to travel in the boat with Jesus and reach the other side of the shore. God does not show us the storms in the middle much ahead, but He will guide us through the storm. After the storm there is surely a calm. In the end everything will be good, since our Lord is in our boat. Esther's book is a good example of a humble beginning, happy ending. She started her life as an orphan but lived as a glorious queen serving our Almighty Father. She was not fearing to die and sought to accomplish God's will. Her perseverance was like a fire. In Esther 4:15, she says, "When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish." She sought to fulfil her life's purpose, and did not worry about risking her own life for it. Our Lord Jesus ascended to Heaven with a glorious victory. The cross and crucifixion frightened Him too in the garden of Gethsemane. But still He pursued the will of God. He did not carry the cross happily singing all the way to Calvary. He carried the spit of people on His face. He was despised, beaten, scourged, thorned, nailed, mocked but He was unstoppable. He pursued till the hardest battle was won. There is no battle as fierce as the battle fought by Jesus. He saved the entire humanity from sins within 24 hours. We are His children. Are there any battles too fierce for us?
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14 May 2023 – 6th Sunday of Easter, (A)
May 14 2023
Sean O’Conaill
It was certainly worthwhile to click that last YouTube link, Joe - to hear Gregorian chant as delivered by that group. A new dimension in sensitivity, gentleness sympathy and empathy. Come Holy Spirit to us all!
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