Come, Holy Spirit! Come, Holy Spirit!
A couple weeks ago, Father Tom asked that we begin our liturgies and homilies by invoking the Holy Spirit to be present to us as we worship God, to animate us and draw us closer to Him. And that is so appropriate with the Gospel reading for this Mass as Jesus says, “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!” We might recall that earlier in the Gospel of Luke, John the Baptist spoke about the coming of Jesus when he said, “I baptize you with water; but he who is mightier than I is coming, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire” (Lk 3:16). So when we call on the Holy Spirit, we don’t want to just say the words, “Come Holy Spirit,” we want Him to awaken in us a fire that will consume us, and bring about in us a desire to love like God loves, so that our worship of Him will be sincere and full. So let us once again call upon Him … Come, Holy Spirit!
With that being said, I’m sure you’ve all heard the term, “Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it.” Because when we look further into this Gospel passage we hear the words of Jesus: “Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.” This doesn’t quite give us the warm fuzzies we might want to feel when reflecting on the Word of God, does it? And there is so much division and controversy that we see in our world today, you might think that Jesus has already accomplished his mission. But don’t we also call Jesus the Prince of Peace? And doesn’t he say in the Gospel of John, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you” (Jn 14:27), and three times after his Resurrection when he sees the apostles in the upper room, “Peace be with you” (Jn 19:19, 21, 26)? Then what is going on here with these mysterious words of Jesus?
It was not Jesus’ desire to divide, but actually to bring us together. He says at the Last Supper in the Gospel of John: “and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (Jn 12:32). He desires for us to be united with him. But we shouldn’t be surprised that Jesus says that he hasn’t come to bring peace, but division. Remember early in the Gospel of Luke, when Joseph and Mary bring Jesus to present him in the temple, Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, “Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted.”
The fact is, he does bring peace, to those who accept his message; but since many reject his message, he also brings division. And this division will even affect household relationships: father and son, mother and daughter, mother-in- law and daughter-in-law. This was actually foretold by Micah, who was a prophet in the eighth century B.C., and he basically says the same thing. However, in his prophecy, Micah goes on to describe the re-gathering and restoration of Israel after the exile. So Jesus is saying in this passage that there will be a time of tribulation in which people will be divided over him. But this will be followed by a time of restoration when he comes again, so he can say, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” So in choosing to follow Jesus, disciples must be willing to suffer with the divisions that will result among family members and friends who do not share the same commitment to Jesus.
This really is a scary passage of the Bible! Because it basically tells us that we should be ready to expect contradiction, confrontation, and division even within our own families, simply because of the message of Christ. Jesus is saying that loyalty to Him is more important than anyone and anything, and true peace is possible only if we embrace Him if faith. Now—I don’t need to tell you that this is really hard. This is what Jesus means when he says later on in Luke’s Gospel, “If anyone comes to me without hating his mother and father, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple” (Lk 14: 26).
Now—Jesus certainly isn’t telling us to hate in the way we would typically mean it. This is a Jewish idiom using exaggeration that simply indicates a preference. Disciples must certainly love their families— “Honor your father and mother” as it says in the Ten Commandments. And Jesus certainly did not hate his mother. He entrusted her to the Apostle John when he was on the Cross. But he is telling us that our love for him must take preference. And one way we can show our love for Jesus is to love our families and ourselves. “Love one another as I have loved you” (Jn 15:12). But he must be first: not for his sake, but for ours.
So what are we supposed to do about all the division? What’s the solution? The first thing, obviously, should be prayer. We need to place ourselves in God’s presence, and ask the Holy Spirit for the wisdom, strength, and patience to seek out reconciliation, restoration, and peace as the prophet Micah foretold, and that Jesus alluded to: for ourselves, and for those with whom there are conflicts and division.
And, believe it or not, what we’re doing right now is the next step. And that is our participation in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. It’s one way that we obey the Third Commandment: to keep Holy the Sabbath Day. For us as Christians, it’s the Lord’s Day—the day of the Resurrection—Sunday. So what does it mean to keep it holy? In Hebrew the word for Holy is “Kadosh”—set apart. Sunday should be a day that is set apart for God. That means that the entire day, and indeed the whole week, should revolve around our participation in the Paschal Mystery: the Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of Jesus, which we celebrate at each and every Mass.
But there’s a problem here. And that is, that too many people don’t do that. Mass and keeping Sunday holy might fit into our schedule because there are too many other things to do. But it should be the other way around. Sunday, and our participation in the Mass should be the focus and then that should sanctify everything else we do in the world. But we’ve allowed the secular world to invade Sunday. The world has distracted us to keep us from setting this day apart.
But it’s more than just making sure we go to Mass on Sunday. The late Father Al Lauer used to say on his Daily Bread radio show that we need to not just go to Mass, but we need to live the Mass. At the end of Mass we hear a commission: “Go, and announce the Gospel of the Lord” or “Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life.” We have to bring the Church into the world, not to bring the world into the Church. It’s our duty as disciples of Christ and his Church to transform the world, not to be transformed by it.
St. Paul tells us in his First Letter to the Corinthians: “If for this life only we have hoped for Christ, we are of all men to be most pitied” (1 Cor 15:19).
But we weren’t made for this world. We were made for the truth. And the truth is Jesus Christ, and the fullness of Truth resides in the Catholic Church which Jesus Christ founded. We were made for the resurrection. We were made for union with Christ. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches this when it says “The ultimate end of the entire divine economy is the entry of God’s creatures into the perfect unity of the Blessed Trinity” (CCC 260). That’s what we were made for.
Secularization is the great enemy of the Church in today’s world. And one of the most effective things the world has done to push secularism on Christians, is to take away Sunday, a day that for Christians should be set apart for holiness: a day set apart for God. But there are so many Christians today that treat Sunday just the same as any other day, and the importance of the day just isn’t there. And when the world looks at us and sees this, how will they ever come to believe what we say we believe about God—about Christ—about His Church? And if we don’t act any differently about this day, and how we should let it dictate the rest of the week and how we live our lives, how could we ever expect anyone else to want to be part of it if we don’t act like we believe it ourselves?
Keep Holy the Sabbath. Go to Mass—celebrate the sacraments as often as possible. But don’t just go to Mass. Live the Mass! And live it every day. Live the Truth which is Jesus Christ!
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Come, Holy Spirit!