Tuesday of the Seventh Week of Easter
Readings for Tuesday of the 7th Week of Easter

First Posted: Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Endings and beginnings

Reflection:

Today we hear the last we will hear from the Gospel of John for some time. Easter tide is ending in just a few days and after we celebrate the Visitation of Mary tomorrow, we begin a year of Discipleship from the Gospel of Mark. As we listen today to the words of St. John we hear the Lord completing his discourse to the disciples just before they go out to Gethsemane. It sounds as if Jesus is summing up what he has been saying to the assembly, reassuring us and them that while it seems to be the end, it is not and that all the Father and he have given will be saved.

To me this feels like we have come full circle from the joy of Easter and the promise of salvation we received last Sunday with the feast of the Ascension. It almost makes me feel melancholy, hearing the Lord speak this way sort of out of phase from where I want to be. We have to look deeper to feel the power and majesty in these words.

If we have been into the story as it has unfolded over the past seven weeks we feel the endings. We feel Paul, now returning to Jerusalem and telling the leaders of the Church he started in Ephesus that he will not be seeing them again. (It seems like just yesterday we heard the story of Pauls conversion and the beginnings of his journey to the gentiles.) We see Jesus with his disciples, having given them among other things the Vine and the Branches, the Shepherd and the Sheep, the greatest Commandment, now praying to the Father:

Father, the hour has come.
Give glory to your son, so that your son may glorify you,
just as you gave him authority over all people,
so that your son may give eternal life to all you gave him.

And from Paul:

But now I know that none of you
to whom I preached the kingdom during my travels
will ever see my face again.
And so I solemnly declare to you this day
that I am not responsible for the blood of any of you,
for I did not shrink from proclaiming to you the entire plan of God

Our Easter Celebration is nearly over for another year and it is time for new beginnings. In a few short days we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit at the great feast of Pentecost. It is a signal that we need to reach into that holy place within us and draw anew on that power he left us, given in Baptism, strengthened and sealed in Confirmation, nourished with the Eucharist, demonstrated in Matrimony and Holy Orders and revitalized in Reconciliation and Anointing. We are, after all a sacramental people and it is the coming Spirit that makes us whole and one with him. Pax