Let All the Nations Praise You!
Jesus is preparing His apostles for what is to come because they cannot even imagine it: soon after this discourse, He will be arrested and tortured and killed. And then He will rise, but he must ascend to the right hand of the Father, so that (just nine days of prayer later) the Holy Spirit can be sent to them to clarify all that Jesus has given them. So they need not be afraid. They will not be alone.
He makes these amazing and incomprehensible promises before they can grasp what it will mean for them: that Jesus must go but will not leave them orphans, that the Eucharist will keep them always united to Him, that God will dwell within them, that the Holy Spirit will support their souls and their work, that peace can be theirs amidst the confusions and difficulties they will experience, and so much more!
He makes these promises to each of us as well! When we are baptized, we are cleansed of sin and God comes to dwell within us. Even more, we are made children of God in Christ His Son – we are given the rights of children who will inherit everything and who know the way home. If we love God and obey His commands, if we participate in the sacramental life of the Church, God comes to us and dwells within us. God’s presence within us – as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - purifies our hearts and our intentions, ignites our love, and deepens our communion with Him, so that we learn to love and serve others with true selflessness.
For our part, we must have the intention of uniting all things to Christ and offering them in the Holy Spirit to the Father – this intention consecrates all we do (from prayer to paperwork, from dishes and diapers to devotions) and makes it holy. We belong to Him truly when we try to love Him by following His directions for living well, from an eternal perspective. This is what brings peace in a troubled world: the knowledge that God is with us, and everything we do matters to Him and can glorify Him!
During Lent we prepared ourselves to enter into Jesus’ great Sacrifice of Redemption on the Cross; because He freely laid down His life for us, we can be truly alive, and live forever in joy and peace and glory. During the 50 days of Easter, we celebrate this stupefying Gift and learn to receive all He longs to give us in this Salvific Act - at every Eucharist, we enter into this moment of self-sacrificing love which saves us, and give thanks for it anew.
At each Mass, let us rejoice and give thanks because God has saved us, unites us to Himself and to each other in Holy Communion, and leads us always in the way of Truth, toward our forever Home in the Heart of the Father.
By Kathryn Mulderink