Anno Domini: Seasons of Faith, The Easter Season
Redemptorist Church
Sunday 13 November
Reading Acts 1: 12-14; Hymn: Thine be the Glory

At the end of his Gospel Saint Luke gives us an important detail which he omits in the passage we have just heard. He tells us that the apostles returned from the Mount of Olives “with great joy” (Lk 24:32). When they went to the Upper Room, this was not the frightened group who ensured that “the doors of the house were locked for fear of the Jews” (Jn 20:19).

What changed them? They had great joy because they had met Jesus. We say that so easily! Familiarity dampens the wonder. The Risen Jesus overturned every calculation and every expectation. He had been mocked and mangled and savagely killed. Now they saw the hope that is stronger than any suffering or fear. Nothing can defeat the love of God made visible in Jesus. He lives a life beyond death and suffering and limitation: ‘Endless is the victory [he] o’er death hath won’.

They had great joy because, although they had seen him go, he would never leave them. He would be within them always in an unshakeable closeness: “Christ within them, Christ behind them, Christ before them, Christ beneath them, Christ above them.” The fulfilment of their deepest hopes, the conquering of their most terrifying fears, the overcoming of every weakness and sinfulness had begun. Christ, the beginning of the new creation lived in them (Gal 2:20).

Jesus was drawing them into the new creation with him as he promised (Jn 12:32). Their joy was full of anticipation. Just before he ascended from their sight, Jesus had ordered them to stay in Jerusalem until they had been clothed with power, because “I am sending upon you what my Father promised” (Lk 24:49). They were waiting for the Holy Spirit, the Giver of Life.

In Genesis, the Spirit of God hovered, or as some translations put it ‘swept’, over the waters like a mighty wind, bringing order into the chaos –sky and sea, sun and moon, light and darkness, bringing the great variety of life that fills our world – vegetation and animals, birds, fish, cattle and creeping things, and finally bringing humankind, created in the image of God.

Now as they prayed in the Upper Room, a new creation was beginning. The Spirit was again sweeping over the world, giving a new shape and meaning to human life and to all creation. From now on creation would groan with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God (Rom 8:19).

The apostles gathered in the Upper Room with the women, and with Mary his mother and his relatives, were joyful because they were waiting for the mighty wind of the Spirit to unite them in their new mission. The Spirit would form the Church as the sign and instrument of Christ’s presence in the world – the presence, you might say, of our future in the flowering of the risen life he already shares with us. They prayed together as they waited to be transformed.

They prayed together, a very mixed gathering – those who had stood at the foot of the cross, like Mary, and those who had run away, like Peter – strong and weak, sinful and full of grace. They prayed for the Spirit who would unite them more closely to the Father and send them out to bring Christ’s word and presence to the world.

We have received that Spirit of Pentecost, but in each of us there is a mixture of feelings, like those in the Upper Room. In each of us there is weakness and strength, bewilderment and confidence. We pray for our transformation, for the fulfilment of our hope. We ask Jesus to come to take us to himself; we pray for his Spirit to renew the face of the earth.

In our individual lives, in our country, in our Church, we meet many a Calvary, many a temptation to believe that all is lost, many a failure, many a sign of the presence of the evil that we would prefer not to face. Failure to face the evil that is around us and within us will result in outrage and indignation directed at everyone and everything. We need rather to look at our weakness and our hope. Otherwise, helplessness and disillusionment and despair will tempt us to lose hope. We all need to join in the prayer of the upper room.

That is the answer to despair. This world was so loved by God that his only Son died to save us from our weakness and to lead us to a life that death and evil cannot touch. That joyful hope challenges us never to lose hope. In the blood and horror of Calvary, all was not lost; the new creation was being born. But hope should not tempt us to sit back and wait. Joyful hope longs to share itself, to cooperate with the work of the Spirit in ourselves and in the world. Joyful hope assures us that such efforts are never wasted and evil does not triumph. ‘Lovingly he greets us, scatters fear and gloom’.

We are people of joyful hope. The deepest truth of our world is that, because of what we celebrate at Easter, the world is groaning and longing for the blossoming of the new creation that is coming to birth: The Spirit and the bride say, "Come." And let everyone who hears say, "Come." And let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift (Rev 22:17).

+Donal Murray
Bishop of Limerick