6th Sunday of Easter
May 1, 2016
12 Noon Liturgy
J.A. Loftus, S.J.
“There is always resistance to the surprises of the Spirit, but it is the
Spirit who continues to lead the church forward.” That was Pope Francis’ message at the Santa Marta chapel on Thursday of this past week. He was commenting on the same reading we just heard today from the Acts of the
Apostles (Pope Francis’ homily from Thursday, April 28, 2016). The Pope continued noting that the apostles were surprised by the Spirit as they found themselves in new and unthinkable situations.
In typical Pope Francis fashion, he described the apostles as having a
“hot potato” in their hands, and they didn’t know what to do. And that potato came from God’s Holy Spirit. “It’s that crazy Spirit,” they must have thought. Soon they would realize that the Spirit was just beginning to surprise them.
But change upsets everyone, most of the time. And yet change is what today’s whole liturgy is about. Questions for today? How are we going to handle change in our church? And, perhaps even closer to home, how do we handle change in our own lives?

It was Blessed John Henry Newman who once wrote, “In a higher world it may be otherwise, but here below, to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.” But still, very few of us like change. Nor do many institutions we belong to embrace change easily. Change is always unsettling.
Change always carries risks. There is a little voice is most of us that whispers constantly, “you can’t go around changing everything; some things are essential , are permanent, are too important to mess with.” Sound familiar?
Today’s first reading from the Acts is a truly amazing story. Let’s watch—perhaps even contemplate for a moment—how in its earliest period, in fact in its very earliest period, when things were still so fragile, that community chose to embrace startling change. They quickly became full of new hope and trust and faith. But they must have been scared to death.
Remember when Jesus promised that God would send the disciples an
Advocate, a Paraclete, and Holy Spirit? One version is today’s gospel story.
Jesus says that Holy Spirit would do two things: She will teach you everything, and she will remind you of all I told you. So never let your hearts be troubled or afraid. And yet, they must have been scared to death at today’s moment.
They might have seen it coming. Peter was already prompted by that
Spirit. To baptize Cornelius and his whole family without their making any
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commitment to the Mosaic Law. And Paul and Barnabas had been sending word to Jerusalem for weeks or months about all their Gentile converts.
There were so many converts to the new group and many of them were not
Jews. But almost all the original disciples were Jews. What now?
After much talking and listening and prayer, they come to the conclusion that embraces the first, very first, momentous change in the still budding church. They send a letter to the others saying (in our translation),
“It is the decision of the Holy Spirit, and of us, not to place any further burden upon you….” Personally, I so prefer the NRSV translation here. It says, “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us….” It just seems good at this time to the Holy Spirit and to us. And we remain open to further consideration and revision. That last part is just a logical conclusion.
And the church does indeed change—again and again and again.
Sometimes what changes has seemed like it was essential. But it has been a long time since any of us had to worry about eating strangled meat, or meat offered to idols. “Here below, to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.”
So what does remain essential? What can we be absolutely positive about? That, too, is in today’s gospel. Is it that we live in peace with each other? No, that’s too modest a claim. And besides, we’ve already failed
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miserably on that front. What is essential is that we love one another—in all our diversity, and strangeness, and peculiarity. Liberal or conservative, fundamentalist or libertarian, black, brown, yellow, or white, male or female, or neither or both,…and on goes the marvelous list of our, at times, perverse diversity.
Pope Francis ended his homily with this prayer. “Let us ask the Lord for grace, the grace to understand how the church can face the surprises of the Spirit today, the grace to be docile and to follow the path which Christ wants for us and for the whole church.” That is a fitting place to end. But I will not end just yet.
This whole “little” church community, the church of St. Ignatius, is facing immanent change itself. And there is always change in each of our lives on some horizon. Is there a hope, a lesson, a prayer in today’s liturgy for us ?
You and I have to decide that of ourselves. Sometimes change is good; sometimes change is not so good. But in either case, it is inevitable. And it invites some response from us. The first apostles listened to each other, they debated, they prayed and then they embraced a scary future. Maybe that’s not such a bad lesson to learn. “Here below, to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.” But remember Pope Francis too, “There is always resistance to the surprises of the Spirit.” Be brave! Peace!
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