7th Sunday of Easter
May 17, 2015
4 PM, 10 AM & 5:30 PM Liturgies
J.A. Loftus, S.J.
The British novelist E.M. Forster is most famous for a few of
his works. Howard’s End, The Passage to India, and Maurice are
among them. He was seen by some as almost completely
preoccupied by the passage of time, and the experience of waiting.
He once said, “We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to
have the one that is waiting for us.”
Later in he 20th century, the enormously popular mythologist,
Joseph Campbell, echoed the sentiment changing only one word,
“We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one
that is waiting for us.” (For those of you wondering, no, Campbell
did not attribute the original quote to Forster. As is often said
about all research, “amateur thinkers borrow, mature thinkers
steal.”)
Let’s add one more quote from a 20th century scientist,
another very popular figure on television, Carl Sagan. He said, and
rather repeatedly, “Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to
be known.”
Why all the quotes about waiting and watching? Because this
is the time par excellence in the church, for just waiting. It’s the
time between the Ascension and Pentecost. And whether or not
you think those two events were separated from the resurrection
experience by three days or ten days, or 40 days, or not at all
separated. The scriptures and the gospels describe a time of
waiting, of expectation, and of anxiety.
The liturgical time between the Ascension and Pentecost is
clearly marked-off as a time during which not much gets done, not
much even happens; everyone simply waits, not knowing what to
expect. To be sure, those early disciples do take up a little business
like described in today’s Acts reading. They ask for nominations to
replace Judas and they hold an election. All 120 of them vote and
the vote is confirmed by Peter. (It is a nice touch in church
governance that seems to have been lost in the mists of history.
But that’s another homily for another time.)
So how do you feel about celebrating waiting? How does it
feel when you’re in a so-called “waiting room” for hours? Do you
feel much like celebrating? I don’t. And yet that’s what the church
asks us to do today: to celebrate waiting and wait to be surprised.
2
Most of what I learned about waiting in my own life and in the
church’s life was at the hands of the Religious of the Cenacle. They
lived right down on Lake Street in what is now the International
Language School. It was a retreat center. The sisters were founded
by a rather obscure woman named St. Therese Couderc with the
inspiration of St John Francis Regis, a Jesuit. Their ministry was
and still is primarily offering the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius
of Loyola.
Shortly after my ordination as a priest I became their
resident chaplain and celebrated daily Eucharist for about 60 of
them. I was somewhat shocked to learn early in my first year (I
started in January), that their primary Feast Day, that of Our Lady
of the Cenacle, was celebrated on the Saturday between Ascension
and Pentecost. They actually chose to celebrate a day on which
nothing whatsoever actually happened. Mary sat quietly in the
Upper Room, the Cenacle, and only waited.
I imagine to this day that Mary and the others pondered
words that years later the author of John’s letter wrote down for
later generations. What could it now mean to have heard these
3
words, “No one has ever seen God. Yet if we love one another, God
remains with us, and God’s love is brought to perfection in us.”
I imagine them remembering Jesus’ words, his so-called High
Priestly Prayer, or his Last Will and Testament. “Holy Father, keep
them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one
even as we are one.” And “As you sent me into the world, so I send
them into the world.”
What did it all mean? To them? To us? He was with them; he
was taken from them; he was with them again, and gone again!
Time, space, distance have no meaning any more. Who could have
known what was coming next? So they just waited and worried,
terribly it seems to me. I would have.
Waiting is a quiet time. And waiting is an anxious time for
most. And here we sit waiting two thousand years later. “I will not
leave you orphans. I will send you a Paraclete, an Advocate, a Spirit
to remain with you always. Wait and watch for her.
“We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept
the one that is waiting for us.” (E.M. Forster) “Somewhere
something [Someone] incredible is waiting to be known.” (Carl
Sagan)
4
Wait in Peace!
5