+Our text from the prophet Amos this morning is not an easy one to listen to. We are aware of the injustices in our own world, where the poor continue to be oppressed and where we are exposed very little to the plight of refugees or those without food to survive. The rich are in control of so much of the news and public thinking. And are we facing a famine for hearing the Word of God, facing a lack of inspired leadership among Nations?
Our gospel offers us some relief when we find Jesus sitting down to eat with tax collectors and sinners, reminding the Pharisees that God desires mercy and not sacrifice, that he himself has come not to call the righteous but sinners. May he have mercy on the sinful world of today and help us all to hear God’s word even now being spoken amid all the turmoil of our time.
Love should be a 2-way street, going and coming, back and forth.
But when love is one-sided, Unrequited, never gets returned,
it’s one of the most painful things we experience –
Our best theater, opera, literature, how many popular songs?
reflect real-life tragedies, which prove:
No one has the power to make another love them.
It even showed up in “Peanuts,” by Charles Schultz.
His 18,000 strips, close to 50 years of art, contained a lot of Heartbreak.
Schulz never intended to write ‘Peanuts’ for children,
he used kids as a vehicle, it allowed him to use different themes, that would be heavy if an adult said them.
He showed a lot of heartbreak in scenes where Peppermint Patty loves Charlie Brown,
but Charlie Brown loves the Little Red-Haired Girl,
where Sally loves Linus, who loves his teacher, Miss Othmar.
Lucy loves Schroeder, who wants nothing more than to play Beethoven on his toy piano.
These crushes may seem funny and sweet, but in one strip Lucy attacks her rival.
She flings Schroeder’s toy piano into the “kite-eating tree,” which chomps the instrument to dust. Heartbreak is painful, in fiction and in real life both.
Today we celebrate a Feast of God’s love,
a divine love that was strongest on the Cross, when the Sacred Heart was literally torn apart for us, as the soldier’s lance pierced Christ’s side.
A love so strong, that it desires ‘no one may be lost,’
including you and me, ‘no one may be lost.’
But it also is a love that is unreturned.
As He said to St Margaret Mary Alacoque, the Apostle of the Sacred Heart,”
“Behold the Heart which has so loved men that it spared nothing,
even to exhausting and consuming itself,
in order to testify to that love;
and in return, I receive from the greater part, only ingratitude.”
He points to his Sacred Heart, surrounded by thorns, pierced with a sword, consumed with fire. His plea is for Love, because all that He has done, all his redemptive work …
becoming human … his Passion and suffering … dying on the cross … all the Love that He has offered us time and again,
could be in vain unless we return His Love.
Sometimes we imagine Christ didn’t really suffer like we do; that he possessed some Divine advantage that made his suffering different, somehow less painful.
On the contrary, that’s precisely what makes God’s love so great:
While we were still sinners, He took the initiative,
He became human, like us in all things, except sin.
He labored and loved, sweat and bled, He suffered.
“By his wounds we have been healed.”
But there was the risk.
Even the almighty King of the Universe has no power to make us love Him in return.
As he passed through a village on his way to Jerusalem, someone asked Jesus,
“Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?”
Just that thought probably broke his heart, His merciful heart which longed that everyone be saved. It pained Him to think that His Love and Mercy might not be accepted,
might not be received.
In the Temple, Jesus cried out in grief:
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones God’s messengers!
How often I’ve wanted to gather your children together as a hen protects her chicks beneath her wings, but you wouldn’t let me.”
Closer to His Last Supper, Jesus wept over Jerusalem, because of their defiant ignorance: “If only you had known the things that make for your peace!
The day will come when your enemies will surround you,
hem you in on every side, tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you,
not leaving one stone upon another, because you did not accept the time of your visitation.”
His grief and tears, because, although Humans can offer love, God can offer love …
… You can’t force anyone to Love you!
Yet Jesus never gave up.
Even on the Cross, as the Romans were putting him to death,
as His own people were mocking Him…
when you and I would have cried out for vengeance,
His Heart was moved with a pity that comes from genuine love.
In His last plea, Jesus cried out for mercy and forgiveness.
“Who is there who would not love this wounded heart?” St Francis of Assisi asked.
“Who would not love in return Him, who loves us so much?”
That’s the risk. Christ knowingly took it.
Knowing that not even God almighty has the power to make us love Him in return.
Of all possible Feasts, today should be the day we specially return His love.
Today we celebrate the birth of a man, the cousin of Jesus; the precursor of the Messiah; the first to experience the way of the new messiah.
We know the beautiful human story; a child of promise conceived in old age and the young niece, Mary, comes to assist the aged mother. The friends and relatives rejoice and are concerned about his name, John.
We know of his special mission from the hymn sung by his priest father, Zechariah. “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people”. Zechariah includes the life of his child in the Benedictus, the panoramic view of salvation history. He gives thanks because the child will foretell the Messiah.
And we know how the child would experience the new Messiah, the new Moses; the Savior of all. When from his prison, John sent his disciples to ask Jesus to perform the work of Messiah in his life, to save him from the hand of the pagan murderer Herod. Jesus answer was, “and blessed is anyone who takes no offense in me.”
Rather than save John’s life by a mighty act which the Chosen People always expected from their God, Jesus told John that the new reign of God is the way of powerlessness. It is the gift of eternal life after having passed through the mystery of death. This is the way that Jesus would show us from the cross. This is the witness Jesus asked of the man John, his precursor who was about to lose his head at the whim of a dancing girl.
Monks have always found in John the Baptist something of a model. His life of austerity; his single-hearted joy in Jesus; his giving place to the true Messiah, called to us to follow the example. But above all we should model the last great act of John and not take offense at the Lord our God who will ask each of us the same faith and hope which will bring us into the eternal life of God.
What John was asked to do, what each of us will be called to experience is precisely what Jesus did. No longer will the Kingdom be established by mighty armed victories. The new Kingdom is founded on the personal commitment of each person. Jesus will give us the way and it is the way that John the Precursor was called to experience; it is the way of Jesus. Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemani that this chalice of suffering and degradation would be taken from him. This was John’s request when he sent his disciples to ask Jesus if he was the Messiah. John was requesting to be saved from his hour; from the impossible situation caused by the pagans. Should not the Messiah for whom the entire life of John has been spent save his precursor?
No! John as the Precursor of the new Messiah must enter into the mystery of death with the faith and hope that offers his life into the hands of the Father. As Jesus in his final moment will pray – into your hands I entrust my Spirit.
As we celebrate this Eucharist we pray with John the Baptist and with Jesus, “into your hands I entrust my Spirit”.
+BECOMING LIVING MEMBERS OF CHRIST’S BODY 19 June ‘22
This Sunday and each day of the week, the priest representing Christ, takes bread at this altar, giving thanks he raises it up saying: “This is my Body”. And then he takes the cup with wine saying: “This is my Blood which will be poured out for you and many for the forgiveness of sins.”
What takes place here at this altar is to take place in each of our lives all day long. Jesus, giving us his Body and Blood is an act of infinite love that seeks to evoke from each of us the total gift of ourselves in love for God and one another.
As St Paul has just reminded us in his first letter to the Corinthians recalling Christ’s words, this is Christ’s body for you, this is the cup of the new covenant in his blood, the blood carrying the very life of what is sacrificed. Each one of our lives is to become one with that of Christ so that we radiate his presence in everything we think, do or say. This Solemnity of Corpus Christi is to be a feast of the whole Christ, of our own lives as living members of his Body. It is to be our own feast in a profound sense if God incarnate is going to be experienced in our world today and isn’t this the meaning of the “new covenant” St Paul has told us about.
Our gospel from St Luke speaks to us on many levels. The apostles are worried about the crowd that has gathered around them in a deserted place, where there is no lodging or provisions. Jesus tells them to give those gathered food themselves though they have practically nothing to give to such a huge gathering, only a few loaves of bread and two fish. What a beautiful description of the many life situations we all find ourselves in.
What is expected of us, what we know needs to happen far exceeds our limited capacities. Whether it is the demands of family or community, facing a failed relationship, disillusionment with what is happening in the Church, our own weakness and sinfulness, being the loving persons we are called to be seems impossible. Here is when we hear Jesus asking us to trust in him, inviting us to give him our very limited resources which he will bless and then be used to meet all our needs and those of all around us.
Each of our lives is to become Eucharist for others all the day long as we allow our lives to be blessed and given in love to all in need. Whether it is how we get out of bed in the morning, offer our morning prayer or the Divine Office we are committed to, whether it is thinking of others’ needs before our own, sharing a kind word rather than a critical one, whether working rather than seeking comfort, giving a gracious smile rather than downcast eyes, showing compassionate rather than being judgmental, it is all about being Christ’s presence to all around us, to all with whom we live and work each day.
When the priest, representing Christ, says at this altar “this is my Body, this is my Blood of the New Covenant we are each and all being called to be one with his loving sacrifice, a sacrifice that is to continually giving new life to our world.
+ST BERNARD AND THE BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST 19 June, 2022
As this Solemnity of Corpus Christi approached, I found myself continued to be moved by the Sermons of St Bernard that I have been going through with the juniors. There are aspects of them that speak of the close relationship between the soul, the Bride with Christ the Bridegroom that portray the meaning of this Solemnity like little else I’ve ever come across.
Bernard writes:
“So let us too, following scriptural usage, say that the Word of God, God himself, the Bridegroom of the soul, both comes to the soul and departs again at his pleasure, provided we realize that what is described is an inward perception of the soul and not an actual movement of the Word. For example, when the soul feels an inflowing of grace, it recognizes his presence, when it does not, it complains of his absence and seeks his return, saying with the Psalmist: ‘My face has sought you; your face, Lord, will I seek.’”
The Bridegroom both comes and departs again at his pleasure. We have all known of those times when a sense of God’s presence in our lives has been very real, empowering us to pursue a course of life or action that gives us a deeper meaning and purpose in life. After all, we have come into this world so as to become sharers in God’s very own divine life and reflect it by all that we say or do. And isn’t this the whole purpose of why Jesus gives us his Body and Blood as food for our journeys?
“Show me now a soul [St Bernard goes on to say] that the Word—the Bridegroom—habitually visits, a soul that familiarity has rendered bold, that has tasted just enough to acquire a hunger… and I will unhesitatingly assign to it the voice and name of Bride… For she who is introduced as speaking is certainly like that. The fact that she recalls the Bridegroom is proof that she has merited his presence, although not the fullness of his grace.. It may be that was why he withdrew himself, to be called back more eagerly and clasped with greater urgency.”
As we become daily more aware of the comings of the Bridegroom into our lives, one of which is our being given his very own Body and Blood in the Eucharist, we acquire a certain familiarity with God. We should not be surprised that as a result that we come to dislike whatever fails to convey an opening to this loving presence. Calling him back when he seems to be absent is normal, especially once we realize how deeply meaningful this presence is for our lives. With all the disillusionment with wealth and power in our world today, you would think our churches and monasteries would be filled with those seeking authentic meaning and satisfaction in their lives. But there are countless distractions around us through the power of the media, that many do not take the time to be attentive to their own deepest longings and needs. It often takes a crisis before they can begin to realize their true selves in Christ.
Might this be one of the greatest advantages of our own way of life as it allows us time and space to become truly aware of our most authentic desires and human longings? Let me finish with one final quote from St Bernard:
“The soul that loves the Lord is carried away by its longing. Borne forward by the pull of its desire; choosing to forget its small deserving, it shuts its eyes to God’s majesty and opens itself to bliss, sure of its salvation and dealing confidently with him. Without fear or shame it recalls the Word and trustingly asks for its former delights, calling him, with its accustomed liberty, not Lord but Beloved. ‘Return, my beloved, be like a roe or a young stag upon the mountains of Bethel.’”
Dear Brothers and Sisters – Way back sometime in the 4th century B.C., Plato wrote a dialogue called The Symposium. In it, a bunch of friends, including Socrates, are sitting around drinking. One of them says, “Let’s all make a speech about love,” and everybody thinks this is a grand idea. So they go around the table giving speeches. Among the group is Aristophanes, the Greek comedian. He’s a pretty funny guy. So for his speech he tells this story.
Humans were originally built with four legs, four arms, two faces, and so on. They were very strong, and could travel by sticking out their arms and legs and rolling around like a ball. The problem was that they were so strong, they challenged the Gods, Zeus, Apollo, Hera, Athena, that bunch. So the Gods held a council and decided that the humans had to be reduced somehow. So Zeus took his thunderbolt, and struck every human with it, slicing them in two right down the middle. Now they only had two arms and two legs and were not nearly as strong. And Zeus told them, “Watch it, if you act up any more, I’ll cut you in half again, and you’ll be hopping around on one leg!” During all this disruption, the humans were scattered all over the place. Each of them had a deep longing for his or her other half, the half they’d been split from. So they spent their lives looking for this other half. And if by chance they’d find him or her, they immediately slammed together, making themselves one again, with four legs, four arms, etc. and presumably lived happily ever after.
It’s a funny story, but it has some profound meanings. We all have the nagging feeling that we are not complete in ourselves, that we need someone else to be fulfilled as a human being. Some of us have been lucky enough to find “our other half,” as we say, and with love, and some hard work added in, have found contentment in a relationship.
The point is that love needs at least two people, a lover and a beloved. In Aristophanes’ story, there is a third element needed when the two halves of a person come together. They need love, as a glue of sorts, to hold them together. So love isn’t love without two people and the love between them.
We hear the Gospel of John say, “God is love.” Some of us may think that this means that God radiates love, that God is infinitely loving, or that God’s love for us is inexhaustible. These things are true, but that’s not the same as saying “God is love.” Saying “God is love” means that God in God’s self, in God’s very being, before any external object, is love.
This, I believe, is at least one way of looking at the Trinity. As we’ve said, there is no love without two and the love between them. So, within the Trinity we have the Father and the Son, and between them, their love for one another, the Holy Spirit. This love flows between them in a circle, the Father’s love for the Son flowing back from the Son to the Father.
Of course, it’s almost impossible to avoid seeing the Trinity in our poor earthbound imaginations as two people, the Father sitting over there, and the Son sitting opposite gazing fondly at each other, with the Holy Spirit like some kind of sparkly CGI energy in between them, all three wrapped up in a glowing orb. But of course, the reality can’t be like that. There aren’t two or three separate people in the Trinity. They are one in being. We say there are “three persons” in the Trinity, but that’s not much help, because “persons” simply refers back to the Trinity. The Trinity is the only occasion when we use the word “persons” in this sense. We also say that Christ incarnate is one person with two natures, just to confuse things a little more.
Our readings today use the image of being “poured out.” The character of Wisdom in Proverbs is often associated with Christ. The prologue of John’s Gospel makes this connection, the Word, as co-creator. So in our first reading, when Wisdom says “from of old I was poured forth, at the first, before the earth,” we might take this description as applying to the second Person of the Trinity. In the second reading, Paul says, “the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” The Holy Spirit too is “poured out.” This image of the persons of the Trinity being a sort of liquid might help to break down our anthropomorphic image of the Trinity, the Father as an old guy with a white beard, the Son looking like our favourite painting of Jesus, and the Holy Spirit as a bird. At least the description of the persons of the Trinity as liquid might help us to realize how indefinable, how indescribable, how strange God actually is.
This image of Persons of the Trinity being poured out brings us to another fundamental trait of God. The love that the persons of the Trinity have for one another is not internal, locked within the Trinity, not something they enjoy for themselves. Instead this love overflows from the Trinity out to creation, and in fact causes creation.
Our first reading today gives us a delightful picture of the relationship between the Father and Wisdom, whom we identify with the Son. They are inseparable. “When the Lord established the heavens I was there.” They are co-workers in the act of creation, “I was beside him as his craftsman.” But this work of creation is not merely work, but a delight. “I was his delight day by day, playing before him all the while, playing on the surface of his earth.” What a great image. The act of creation is an act of play, fun, delightful. “Let’s make a platypus.” “Oh wait, I know, a DUCK-BILLED platypus!” And this same love spills over to us – “I found delight in the human race.” In a sense, the created world is what God’s love for us looks like. And in the created world, we are told that humans hold the highest place in God’s eyes. We are the very manifestation of God’s love for us.
So when scripture says that “God is love,” this means that God is love in itself, that God is pure relationship. There is no division in will between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Christ says, “He will glorify me because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.” What is Christ’s also belongs to the Holy Spirit. He goes on, “Everything that the Father has is mine,” which is to say that what the Holy Spirit takes from the Son also belongs to the Father. In other words, the three Persons share everything with each other. But the point is that this sharing extends to us, to humanity. The Holy Spirt comes to share with us at least some of what the Trinity shares within itself.
We are made in the image of God. We each are little pictures of the Trinity. We all have this image of the Trinity buried deep within us. It has been obscured by our fallen nature, but it is still there. And the love that the Holy Trinity has for us is also meant to overflow, from us. And it does. It overflows in love for each other. The Holy Trinity teaches us that the love between the lover and the beloved naturally overflows beyond the immediate relationship. When we first fall in love, we want to share this love with the world. We have found our other half, as Aristophanes said. But love does not remain static, closed in on itself. Love is creative. As love matures, it bears fruit. For many of us, this means that the love between two people overflows into a family. For others, it means that the love we have inside us reaches out to our brothers and sisters in religious life, and to God directly. Love is creative. By its very nature it reaches out, beyond ourselves. It is what makes us need each other, to know each other, to interact, to relate. It is what makes us human and through Christ’s love for us, it’s what makes us divine.
+Today’s gospel provides us with some of the most challenging words ever spoken. Jesus saying to his disciples “offer no resistance to one who is evil..if someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other one to him as well.” How different this is from the story we just heard from the Book of Kings, about what was done to Naboth due to Ahab and Jezebel being deceived by wealth and power.
As Fr Louis or Thomas Merton has pointed out in his Journals, as consecrated monks “restricting non-retaliation merely to physical non-retaliation is not enough—on the contrary, it is in some sense a greater evil.” If we are going to be truly non-violent as Jesus was, it means being so with our hearts, being truly loving persons in all circumstances.
One cannot help seeing the wisdom of what Jesus is teaching us in the face of all the gun violence in this country, the war in Ukraine, the abuse in family life and the necessary care of our planet if we are to survive.
+ LOVING AS A WAY OF LIFE Chapter Talk for May 29, 2022
With the Juniors I have been going through a book recommended to me by Bishop Erik Varden called The Cistercian World , edited and translated by Pauline Matarasso. It has a few Sermons by St Bernard on the Song of Songs. Finding the content of these Sermons captivating, I thought to share some of it with you this morning.
In his Sermon 50 St Bernard tells of how:
“love can be a matter of doing or of feeling. Regarding the first, I believe that humankind has been given a law, an explicit commandment. But as to feeling, nobody can love to order, let alone in the measure required. To love in deed is therefore a command to be carried out; a loving heart is received as a gift, in recompense. That in our present life love may, by divine grace, be born in our hearts and grow, I do not deny, but I firmly believe that its coming to full maturity is reserved to future bliss.”
We are all familiar with Christ’s call to love our neighbor as ourselves, even to love as He has loved us. But we are also aware that such love is far beyond our capacity to express by our own efforts. We are made all too aware as was St Bernard that “a loving heart is received as a gift, a recompense.”
One could easily write a book on Bernard’s understanding of love and Fr Mark Scott has a long article on it in the most recent issue of Cistercian Studies in the Scriptorium. Responding and giving expression to divine love lies right at the heart of our monastic lives. We are familiar with St John of the Cross’s saying that at the evening of life we will be judged in the light of the depth of our love.
Our search for this love is nicely summarized in our Community Report for the coming General Chapter when it concludes that “the community of Gethsemani realizes its utter dependence on God. We strive to live with the community we have, with its imperfections, its inevitable inter-personal conflicts, and its frailty. Imperfections are opportunities for grace.” All that takes place in our daily lives is designed to open our hearts to this movement of grace, the gift of divine love.
St Bernard asks the question in his 50th Sermon on the Song of Songs: “How is it that something impossible of achieving came to be commanded?” While there are many answers that may be given, all of them lead us to a fresh awareness of how God continually seeks to make us sharers in God’s very own divine life. Bernard assures us that the God who laid this precept of love upon us “was not unaware that its weight exceeded our strength.”
“[God] did not, by commanding the impossible, make men into transgressors: he made them humble, so that every mouth might be silenced and the whole world brought under the judgement of God, for by keeping the Law no human being will stand justified before him. Taking this commandment into our hearts and feeling our own inadequacy, we shall call to heaven and God will have mercy on us, and we shall know in that day that he saved us not because of any upright actions of our own, but in virtue of his mercy.”
In these few words we have a summary of the whole Christian and monastic way of life. We are all in a very fragile position as we stand before God but strangely enough, this is the very moment for receiving a new and everlasting gift of life. Jesus reminding us in John’s gospel that without him we can do nothing is just one of the many scriptural texts that would have us live in a continual awareness of our need for his tender presence. To do so is to be humbled but also to become ever more grateful for the closeness of God in our daily lives. Isn’t this what St Paul had in mind when speaking of God to the Athenians that “in him we live and move and have our being!”
It is the day before Pentecost, a day of prayer to ask our loving God for a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit on each and all of our lives, on our Church and the world we live in.
We, like Peter in our gospel, want to map out the lives of others but it is more than enough for any of us to simply follow Jesus. Paul didn’t expect to spend the last years of his life in prison but this is where the Spirit led him. He remained there a full two years, receiving all who came to him, proclaiming to them the Kingdom of God.
Wherever we are, whatever we may be called upon to do, we are to be messengers of God’s very own divine life if we are true to the Spirit that comes daily to live in our hearts. May this be a day of prayer for a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit on each of us and on all of the human family.
Even after the Resurrection there is still a lacking element in human life, that is, the Holy Spirit. The complete revelation of God will come when the Spirit too comes to live in the hearts of men. It is the Spirit that makes us understand the words of Christ in its fullest meaning. No one can understand the word of God if he or she is not inspired by the Holy Spirit.
Peace is a very precious commodity today. There are many ways of attaining worldly peace. It is a very lucrative business, billion-dollar business: like yoga centers, exercise club, meditation groups, counselling, zazen, sophisticated but expensive places where you could relax after a stressful week, etc. This is the kind of peace the world gives. However, the peace does not last so one must come back for more. That is why Jesus said that His peace is different from the peace the world gives. If you receive Jesus’ peace your hearts will not be troubled. The peace of Christ creates in the person a firm grasp of reality and it’s meaning. It becomes characteristic of a person, part of his/her personality You will have no stress.
Stress, in most cases, comes when we cannot get what we desire, or things do not happen the way we want them to happen. The Christian is not anxious that he does not see Jesus now. Jesus is in the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will do what Jesus has done for us. The Holy Spirit will make us understand all the words and deeds Jesus has done.
Peace comes when we understand that Jesus has gone to the Father so that He will prepare for us wonderful blessings which we have not even thought of before and much greater than any of the desires and wishes we ever had. True peace is when you want nothing anymore except that the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit live in your heart. There will be no temple in heaven, no need for sun and moon because the glory of God will shine on all.
Jesus in this farewell, reveals the depths of his love. His leaving them in earthly form albeit glorified form of his resurrection, will be a boundless joy for those who loved Him because He and the Father will now dwell in them. The Almighty Father because of the redeeming power of his death and resurrection will now dwell in the hearts of believers. The seeing stops and the believing through the Holy Spirit begins. The eye loses its function to see; and the whole being, the whole person that is the Christian now experiences the indwelling of the Trinitarian God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It will be now the power of the Triune God which will be source of power and strength for the believers to live in the world that seems alien to the spirit that is reigning in their hearts. They do not abandon the world but do everything to bring to others the joy and peace of having God dwell in their hearts and minds. The true believer will be no longer anxious if there is a lack in his or her life for, they believe that God will provide for them like He provides for the birds of the air. The key to this oneness with God is through love of Christ, the Son of God. No one goes to the Father except through the Son. However, this is not merely a horizontal love. John warned Christians: if you say you love the Father who you cannot see and not love your neighbor who you can see, you are a liar.
How does one detect a Christian in the world today: They are those who rejoice over the different gifts God has given its members; they will be those who are out there in the battlefield fighting for justice and rights of human beings; the right to life, those who bring honesty into politics, those who struggle for freedom of religion, for freedom to express one’s opinion and not be harassed, strongly defend the dignity of all human beings. In all these the true Christian rejoices over and not criticizing or hating them for doing such worldly things. Christians know that their duty is the change the face of the earth in the power of the Holy Spirit. Our holiness comes precisely for bring about the spirit and values found of the Kingdom of God in our world. We find the world today in a crisis with problems of war, violence, injustice, oppression, and exploitation of the poor. Many leaders call themselves Christians, but we fail to see the power of God working in them. The Gospel today challenges us to ask ourselves: is God dwelling in me and as Jesus promised? Do I experience the Love when Jesus and the Father dwells in me? The power of Easter can only be seen in Christians who live happily and full of hope despite the hostile world they live in. There are no external proofs of Easter like seeing the resurrected Lord in person.
After all Christ did not promise a life of security unaffected by what is happening in the world. The power of Christians is the power of the Holy Spirit and the indwelling of the Father and the Son. They will be like the sun and the moon that will lighten the darkness of this world. There is hope always because Easter has made our God even closer to us – no matter what our eyes and ears see and hear about our world.