Sunday after Ascension 20 May 2023 The Upper Room
This is the week of weeks for the Church as we relive the original Upper Room experience, where the apostles and disciples gathered with Mary to welcome God's next intervention – the coming of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit came then, and we ask Him to come now. Can He come more than once? Let us say this His first coming established a new order of reality. Subsequent comings are not as dramatic, but can be seen as helping operations to continue. The ship is launched; now how do we keep it floating?
We need the Holy Spirit internally and externally.
Internally, insofar as we all have something lacking. Either we feel inadequate for the task and we need boosting in confidence; or we have confidence but it is misdirected to serve only our own agenda, as though we know the way ahead.
Externally, insofar as we find ourselves in a hostile environment as regards the proclamation of the faith.
We have salvation itself to offer the world, the only complete formula for success that has ever been discovered.
There are some things that are wrong with us, and some things that are wrong with the world, and we need the Holy Spirit for all of them.
We will be tempted to discouragement – to conclude that neither we nor the world in general will ever improve.
We must not project our own doubts onto God; He is not subject to our lack of perception. We doubt what we cannot see or touch (like Thomas) but God has it all under control.
When we pray we are essentially saying: Lord, I know You can do all things; You can do what I cannot. Heal me of whatever is lacking.
Of course we will always be inferior to God, even if we were perfect; but we want to be as good as we can, to give honour to God, for our own happiness, and to be more effective apostles to the world.
Especially in this week we must not give up when we need to be at our strongest.
If we obey Him, thank Him, adore Him, He will provide us with the necessary grace.
Our prayer must be constant or we will sink into discouragement. ‘Believing’ is a full-time job!
We take every chance to express what we believe and put it into practice.
Freed from fear we can do whatever is needed, according to our state in life.
Our Lady was there in that first gathering to help keep up the morale. She needed no changing as she was already at the peak of holiness.
She did there what she does everywhere in obtaining the grace of God to distribute to whomever was ready to receive it.
She is strong where we are weak and we derive strength from her. She is always accessible; we need only to remember her, and blessings will start rolling in.
As to the surrounding world we can solve at least some of the problems by being ready with the word of God to call to repentance, and the sacraments to provide the necessary nourishment to the weary.
People today notice that the world is falling apart in many ways, but they still manage to evade the obvious solution – which is to bring one’s life into union with God; in a word, Repent!.
They fear the discipline of having to worry about commandments and all the rest that goes with Christianity. But we are motivated by love not by a grudging observance of laws and customs.
Those in the upper room experienced the joy of a closeness to God, which they had never had before.
It was an experience that formed them for the rest of their mortal lives. So may we ask for whatever God wishes to send us, but trusting we can be transformed from worriers to warriors!
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