Sunday, May 22, 2022

The Holy Spirit Does the Work (Easter 6.C)


Not long after I came to the parish, a couple of young men started a social group with some help from me and our hardworking housekeeper.

Their plan was to play poker and eat my food.

But very soon, they abandoned the plan, at least the poker playing part, and founded M.E.A.T.—Men Eating and Talking.

Over the years, MEAT went from the five or six men at the rectory dining room table to as many as thirty. I shudder to think of how much pasta and pizza the members devoured.

Eventually, for a variety of reasons, we disbanded. But the fruits of this group continue to this day.

Three of the MEAT men, including one of the founders, joined Catholic Christian Outreach. Two are lay missionaries to this day. One of the occasional visitors is now a priest. Another went to the seminary. And I’ve celebrated marriages and baptisms for members of the group.

The devil may yet prove me wrong, but I don’t know any regular member of the group who doesn’t practice the faith. I don’t know of one who choose to live with a girlfriend; all their marriages were in the Church, many to Catholic women.

What was the secret? Simple: in their fellowship with one another, the men who were eating and talking learned from each other that Christian life was real, and possible.

We might say that their enthusiasm for the faith was caught, not taught.

Today, Jesus talks about the Holy Spirit. He says clearly that the faith gets taught by the Spirit, who will teach us everything. But the Lord could just as easily have said that we are caught by the Spirit—captured by his action within us.

We see the Spirit at work in today’s first reading, from the Acts of the Apostles. False teachers are at work, but the Spirit guides the apostles in setting things right. Because what’s taught in the Church must, of course, be true.

In the second reading, St. John is carried away “in the spirit.” This could be read as meaning he was carried away “in spirit,” but I think it’s fair to say he was given this vision “in the Spirit”—by the Holy Spirit.

It’s not a teaching moment for John. He’s not being given a definition or even a literal description of heaven—he’s having an experience of it. He is caught up in this vision, caught up in the beauty of what God promises him and all believers.

This is how the Holy Spirit works best—by giving us an experience. This is how faith was caught when those young men met in the rectory—by an experience of Christian community in which God was at work.

Parents, teachers, and priests all worry about how to make the faith relevant to the younger generation and how to adapt it to a changing culture. But, in a certain sense, that’s not our job but the Holy Spirit’s.

In the first reading, we see a clash of cultures—between that of the emerging Church and existing Jewish beliefs.

The answer wasn’t obvious. The first Christians were Jews, faithful Jews, and it made some sense for Christianity to remain a Jewish movement. But when the apostles gathered and invoked the Holy Spirit—we don’t hear the whole story in this shortened passage—God showed his plan clearly, and they communicated it to the believers.

The Church has consistently asked the Spirit for help in meeting the demands of each generation, most recently at the Second Vatican Council. The Spirit will help each of us do the same in our homes, schools, and parishes—if we ask, if we pray for guidance.

The content of our Catholic faith is, of course, absolutely important. Without orthodox belief, we would be a ship without a sail. But the Spirit fills our sails with more than doctrine and teachings, however important they are.

A famous Anglican preacher wrote that “a Christian is someone caught by Christ’s spirit, the Holy Spirit, encountered in the life of some other man or woman, and in the worshipping community we call ‘the Church.’

 “And when we have been caught, then Jesus of Nazareth steps out of the pages ohistory, where he is not walled in, and becomes for us… the Christ whom we worship and in whose name we pray.” (D.W. Cleverley Ford, Preaching on Great Themes, p. 83)

How will this happen here at Christ the Redeemer?

More than one of our parishioners is blessed with what St. Paul (see Rm 12:6, 1 Cor 12:28, 29; 13:1-3, 8; 14:6, and Eph 4:11) calls the gift of prophecy, which doesn’t mean they stand on the church steps shouting out like John the Baptist.

We don’t talk much about prophecy, but St. Paul mentions it more than any of the other spiritual gifts. And although he doesn’t necessarily present them in order of importance, we usually find the gift of prophecy near the top of the list.

A while back, one of these parishioners gave the parish a simple prophetic message: “We need more Holy Spirit.”

“We need more Holy Spirit.” Those words are simple, but they have the power to change our lives.

Changed lives don’t happen automatically from good programs or good liturgies or even good teaching. The Spirit does the real work of evangelization, of conversion, and of growth.

As St. Paul tells the Christians in Corinth “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow” (1 Cor 3:6).

Parents and teachers planted seeds in those young men who gathered in the rectory, their fellowship watered the seeds, but God made them bear a rich harvest.

Only with the Spirit’s help will faith be both taught and caught by those who are following in the footsteps of the MEAT men and of the young women who formed their female counterpart, a smaller group called Imprint.

(If you are wondering why I have only talked about the men it’s because I didn’t belong to the women’s group so there’s less I can say!)

Only if we ask will we receive the Spirit’s help. Pentecost is around the corner—two Sundays from now. It’s time to pray for more of the Spirit in our parish as we rebuild after the pandemic.

Let’s pray for more of the Spirit in our families and schools.

Most of all, let’s pray for more of the Spirit—a real outpouring—in our own hearts.

How do we do that? It’s sure not difficult: all we need to do is pray three words morning and evening for the next two weeks, and especially for the nine days before Pentecost.

“Come, Holy Spirit!” Words of power that ask God to grant us a faith that is not only taught but caught.

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