-There is no homily from last week
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 5:30 on Saturday and 12:30 on Sunday
Pentecost
The gifts of the Holy Spirit are the actualization or the "understanding" of what it means to "believe in the resurrection from the dead". This Easter has been filled with this question...how do we not only believe, but understand.
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To believe in the resurrection is to come to know the resurrected Christ in your heart, the possibility of eternal life, a new horizon and source of meaning in life. To understand what that belief means is to live and move and have our being in that resurrected spirit.
The journey from believing to understanding is conversion. Conversion is the movement and transformation of life lived in the body and in the world. The application of the truth.
This Pentecost Sunday challenges us again to understand "what it means to believe in the resurrection" by living in and making visible the resurrected life of Jesus Christ. That can only be done in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Do you understand? Do I? How's that resurrected daily life going?
3 comments:
BINGO!!! Love it, love it, love it!!! The journey from believing to understanding is conversion. The journey from believing to understanding is ... taa-daaaa... APPLICATION!!!
APPLICATION OF THE TRUTH.
Very simple, so simple, wish I had known this earlier in my life.
Yes, this connects with my life's experience and faith, and I think I'm sorta/kinda getting it -- day by day -- but it requires thinking & reflection (& a lot of practice! And falls & getting up again!) cuz many times I choose based on how I feel or knee-jerk what I want versus conscience, reason, God's will...
And here's the other thing...I used to think conversion was a one-shot deal or something dramatic (and it has been), but it is the DAILY application of the Truth. Love that... DAILY application of the Truth. I want to make this spiritual life "easy" by being done with the work of it, but it is in the living it WITH Christ that I am raised WITH Christ.
As usual, the Matador's words challenged me to think - and this week it led me to considering the relation between faith and understanding in a sort of litany...
"I believe in God the Father, Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth"
And so I understand that I, along with all humankind, am the crown of that creation and am called to live in holy dominion over all other created things…
I humbly accept that call, honored to be among the chosen.
"I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord"
And so I understand that I am continually called to die to self, sometimes seemingly alone while other times clearly in communion with others, but only so that new and better life may be born which proves our suffering to be of good and redemptive value…
I patiently accept that call, as a cross upon my back.
"I believe in the Holy Spirit"
And so I understand that I am called to participate in all things made new, joining the use of my gifts with others who join me in the use of theirs, so that God’s Kingdom may take shape in our midst…
I lovingly accept that call, eager to be caught up in that awesome mystery.
Last summer I heard a priest say, ‘you pray how you believe’. So, would you not also live how you believe? Your life as expression of your prayer?
Hmmm…. sounds like a vulnerable way of life… an exposure… maybe that’s why we’re told the Christian life involves suffering and humility and yet, not to be afraid of living that Christian life.
As this relates to the Homily from May 13th, my preferred word this week is “living” over “application”, in other words, living in the truth…
Father said it 3 times:
(1) “ …to live … in that resurrected spirit”;
(2) “…transformation of life lived in the body and in the world”;
(3)“…living in … the resurrected life.”
So as not to divide ‘living’ and ‘life’.
Paul tells us what to watch out for, what can grip – Love does not grip.
Question: With all this in mind, what is the relationship to and of “conversion to sanctification?”
In Christ’s Love, Happy Pentecost to All ~
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