HOMILY FOR THE 6TH SUNDAY OF EASTER, YEAR A
Rev. Fr. Peter Onyekachi Ezekoka
Acts 8:5-8, 14-17 1Peter 3:15-18 John 14:15-21
From the Readings at Mass last Sunday, you may have noticed that the dynamic has shifted from the celebration of the Lord’s resurrection to the preparation for the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the culmination of the Paschal season. These Readings provide us with the opportunity to reflect on the role of the Holy Spirit in the ongoing life of the Church.
In today’s First Reading we have an explanation of why the Samaritan townsfolk, despite having been converted and Baptised, required the ritual laying-on of hands in order to receive the Holy Spirit. They didn’t receive the Holy Spirit first time around because their belief was prompted by miracles rather than by love for Jesus Christ. The Second Reading reminds us that Jesus Christ rose from the dead in the Spirit; and in the Gospel, Jesus announces the promise of the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Advocate. These readings highlight the personal presence of Christ in His Church alongside the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit from the Father.
Wouldn’t it be awful to be stuck on your own and completely helpless, with no means of support and no prospect of support? Can you imagine how awful it would be for you to find yourself abandoned, alone and penniless, and to have absolutely no-one you could turn to? That’s the sense in which the expression ‘abandoned as orphans’ is being used in the gospel. Jesus assured His disciples that He would not abandon them to struggle on alone through the trials of life. Because he was God, He knew of the trials that those disciples would face as a result of his physical absence. That was why Jesus gave them the message before His death that He would not leave them orphans.
It is helpful to look at the Old Testament understanding of orphanhood. In Exodus 22:22-24, the Lord told His people: You must not abuse any widow or orphan. If you do abuse them, when they cry out to me I will surely heed their cry. These verses convey Yahweh’s care for the helpless and abandoned, and which continued seamlessly and in conjunction with God Incarnate in the New Testament: I will not leave you orphans. These words of Christ echoes Yahweh’s condemnation in Exodus of those who take advantage of orphans, of those who strip the weak of their worldly goods and leave them with nothing. Both the Old and New Testaments confirm that God has great interest in the poor, and Luke’s Gospel emphasises His preferential option for the poor. It is my opinion that, as a worshipping community, we need to learn from the example of Jesus to walk alongside those who suffer abandonment and poverty.
Let’s now try a bit of contextual analysis of the word “orphan” (ὀρφανούϛ - without parents, fatherless) as it was used. During the era into which the Christ was born, society was patriarchal. In practice, ‘patriarchal’ means that it is the dad who is in charge. It is the dad who calls the shots, it is the dad who makes the decisions, it is the dad who owns everything that the family has, and it is the dad who supplies everything the family needs. (Of course, this still obtains in some societies today.) You can see that under a patriarchy, the welfare of the family is entirely in daddy’s hands. You can also see that if daddy dies, a family crisis occurs. The implications for the family following daddy’s death are huge, because they find themselves with no-one to guide them, no-one to provide for them and no-one to love and protect them. The abandoned, weakened family is open to being fleeced by wicked people, who – in the absence of daddy - can remove their earthly goods by force and throw them out on the street. In that eventuality, the family members have to rely solely on the generosity of other people and to grub around for available means of survival. Many a time, the dreams and prospects of the members of the family are also shattered. This would mean that the wicked people, by their very act did not only take away the father’s property; they did also take away the dreams and prospects of the orphans.
This understanding of what it means to be orphaned should have helped us now to appreciate Christ’s promise of His abiding presence to his followers. The Lord Jesus knows that leaving us will make us prone to attacks; He is aware of the dangers that surround us, and so does not leave you and me as orphans. He didn’t leave the disciples as orphans, and He won’t leave us as orphans either. When we place our trust in Him, He neither leaves us without protection or provision, nor let our souls be parted from Him by the evil one. His presence in our lives is a living, eternal presence. So, although from time to time we may feel lonely or sad, dejected or rejected, and unable to perceive anything good in our future, the truth is that we are not abandoned, not helpless, and not alone. Our Lord’s promise to us yesterday, today and forever is: I will not leave you orphans.
Our Lord also promised us: because I live and you will live…On that day, you will understand that I am in my Father and you in me and I in you (John 14:19-20). Whenever we feel as if we have been orphaned and abandoned, we should nonetheless have the confidence to say like St. Paul: I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me (Gal. 2:20). This mutual union of Christ and ourselves is the work of the Holy Spirit, given to us by the Father and the Son. In Christ alone is life; in him was life and the life was the life of men (John 1:4). He lives with us. In his book entitled “You”, Fulton Sheen declared: “God came down to the level of man that He might in some way lift man to the level of God.” Here’s a little story for you to illustrate what he meant.
A man had a vision in which he was being led to heaven by an angel. Prior to this vision, his opinion was in line with the common assumption that heaven was somewhere up above. But the angel kept showing him a way which didn’t ascend but, rather, kept on descending. Down and down they went. Curious about this, he asked the angel where he was taking him. The angel explained that, because heaven was too high to reach, and because so many could not bear the cold of the heavenly peak, heaven decided to reach even lower than every possible lowliness, and to come down to man in the Person of Jesus so as to make heaven available to everyone in need.
Christ unites Himself with us and by living in us, He gifts all those who love Him and believe in Him with the Holy Spirit. Living in Christ assures us of life in the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth. As the Advocate, He is called in to be with us, to look after us, to care for us, to guide us and to teach us. The Holy Spirit is called in to live in us and to help us to conform ourselves more and more to the Person of Christ our Lord who is the Way, the Life and the Truth. The Spirit of Truth - the Holy Spirit - equips us to make a stand against the tidal wave of worldly pressures and machinations. Yes! He remains with us always, and never leaves us orphans. Amen. God bless you.
Thank you Father
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