Jesus speaks more about the Spirit; "The Spirit will guide you.”
A young Hindu and a Christian seminarian were attending the same week-long seminar on the Sermon on the Mount. In the course of the week, the two young people became good friends. At one point, the young Hindu confided to the seminarian that he had problems with Jesus' sermon. He knew how much it had influenced Gandhi, and he wanted to live his life by it. But he feared it was too lofty an ethic for ordinary people to live by. Toward the end of the seminar, however, the Hindu gained new insight into his problem. The ethic was indeed lofty, but he had forgotten about Jesus' promise. The Holy Spirit will not only teach the people the value of the ethic but also empower them to follow it.
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How open are we to the Holy Spirit's guidance and help? "Where the human spirit fails, the Holy Spirit fills." Anonymous
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St. Paul in Athens provides an example of an apostle and missionary who attempts to use the pagan religion of the Athenians as a starting point and spiritualize it by stripping it of materialism and formalism.
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When Paul speaks to Jews, he starts from the Word of God: God's revelation. When he speaks to the Gentiles, he starts from the work of God: his manifestation. By mentioning the "Unknown God" he begins from what they know, to lead them to a deeper knowledge. This God does not make his home in temples and shrines. He is not made by people; he is their Maker. He has no need for us. We need him. He is independent, perfect in himself. He gives us life, not we to him. He made us, not we him. He made all men. There is no national God. But in his providence, he looks after everyone. He created our heart for him. All men desire God. He is not far from us. "In Him we live" like the branches in the vine. All life comes from the vine. "In him we move", attracted by his holiness, his mercy, his forgiveness, his grace. In him we are the idea of his image and likeness. We are made for him. His law, our duties an rights, our responsibility, our love, our eternity are all grounded in him At this point Paul noticed doubts, rejection, mockery. He changed an said some hard truths. They were ignorant in religion. They had to change their minds and do penance. One day God, who rose from the dead will judge thon. This was too much for them. Some burst out laughing, though laughter is never an argument. Others said more politely: about this we will hear another time. We cannot ignore God or his will. So, Paul left and went to Corinth.
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The apostles should not be sad because Jesus leaves them. Their faith will become deeper and more spiritual when Jesus is no longer physically present. The Holy Spirit of truth will continue with them the mission of Jesus. This Spirit of truth will give them no new message, but he will guide the apostles and the Church to deepen their understanding of the life and the message of Jesus and to confront these constantly with the events and problems of the times. And thus, lead the Church forward.
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The self-manifestation of God which brings God's truth to people is called revelation. This passage tells us much about it. Revelation is an ongoing process. "I have still many things to say to you" (verse 11). Revelation has never been closed. It was not closed when Jesus left his apostles, and when the Holy Spirit came down on Pentecost Sunday at nine a.m. This was only the beginning. This revelation is not only in the Bible, it is in the tradition as well. The Holy Spirit is always active. God reveals when we are able to hear it (verse 12). It is not man 's discovery, it is God's gift. The Holy Spirit will not bring a new gospel. He is the agent who will bring home to the human heart all that God has revealed to Jesus. The revelation is God's word given to us through Jesus. Paul's gospel too is God's revelation to Jesus (Galatians 1-12).
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Empiricism is a philosophical theory that all knowledge is based on experience derived from the senses. It means that as long as we can touch it, see it, hear it, smell it or taste it, then we can know it or find out more about it. Anything outside of the senses are not to be discussed as they don't appeal to the senses and hence, nothing can be known about it and no experience can be gained from it. So it can be said that empiricism does not take into account the "sixth sense" or "intuition" as it cannot be measured or quantified. How empiricism handles the question of faith depends on how much of it is considered acceptable.
In the 1st reading, when Paul stood before the whole Council of Areopagus and made the speech, what he said was acceptable to them until he talked about God raising a man from the dead. At this mention of raising from the dead, some of them burst out laughing, while others seem to be interested in that.
As much as we profess that we believe in the Resurrection of Christ, yet we too may not really understand what it is truly about. We may not laugh at it but we have our questions that we are still search for the answers. There may be much material on it but we will have to let the Spirit of truth lead us to a deeper understanding of the mystery of our faith.
What we cannot understand, let us not discard or reject or laugh at it. The time may come when the Spirit of truth will lead us to a leap of faith and then we will be enlightened.
Prayer: Lord God, our Father, you are not far away from any of us, for in you. we live and move and exist and you live in us through your Holy Spirit. Be indeed with us Lord, send us your Holy Spirit of truth and through him deepen our understanding of the life and message of your Son, that we may accept the full truth and live with it consistently. We ask you this through Christ, our Lord. Amen
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Feast day: May 13
May 13 is the anniversary of the apparition of Our Lady to three shepherd children in the small village of Fatima in Portugal in 1917. She appeared six times to Lucia, 9, and her cousins Francisco, 8, and his sister Jacinta, 6, between May 13, 1917 and October 13, 1917.
The story of Fatima begins in 1916, when, against the backdrop of the First World War which had introduced Europe to the most horrific and powerful forms of warfare yet seen, and a year before the Communist revolution would plunge Russia and later Eastern Europe into six decades of oppression under militant atheistic governments, a resplendent figure appeared to the three children who were in the field tending the family sheep. “I am the Angel of Peace,” said the figure, who appeared to them two more times that year exhorting them to accept the sufferings that the Lord allowed them to undergo as an act of reparation for the sins which offend Him, and to pray constantly for the conversion of sinners.
Then, on the 13th day of the month of Our Lady, May 1917, an apparition of ‘a woman all in white, more brilliant than the sun’ presented itself to the three children saying “Please don’t be afraid of me, I’m not going to harm you.” Lucia asked her where she came from and she responded, “I come from Heaven.” The woman wore a white mantle edged with gold and held a rosary in her hand. The woman asked them to pray and devote themselves to the Holy Trinity and to “say the Rosary every day, to bring peace to the world and an end to the war.”
She also revealed that the children would suffer, especially from the unbelief of their friends and families, and that the two younger children, Francisco and Jacinta would be taken to Heaven very soon but Lucia would live longer in order to spread her message and devotion to the Immaculate Heart.
In the last apparition the woman revealed her name in response to Lucia’s question: “I am the Lady of the Rosary.”
That same day, 70,000 people had turned out to witness the apparition, following a promise by the woman that she would show the people that the apparitions were true. They saw the sun make three circles and move around the sky in an incredible zigzag movement in a manner which left no doubt in their minds about the veracity of the apparitions. By 1930 the Bishop had approved of the apparitions and they have been approved by the Church as authentic.
The messages Our Lady imparted during the apparitions to the children concerned the violent trials that would afflict the world by means of war, starvation, and the persecution of the Church and the Holy Father in the twentieth century if the world did not make reparation for sins. She exhorted the Church to pray and offer sacrifices to God in order that peace may come upon the world, and that the trials may be averted.
Our Lady of Fatima revealed three prophetic “secrets,” the first two of which were revealed earlier and refer to the vision of hell and the souls languishing there, the request for an ardent devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the prediction of the Second World War, and finally the prediction of the immense damage that Russia would do to humanity by abandoning the Christian faith and embracing Communist totalitarianism. The third “secret” was not revealed until the year 2000, and referred to the persecutions that humanity would undergo in the last century: “The good will be martyred; the Holy Father will have much to suffer; various nations will be annihilated'”. The suffering of the popes of the 20th century has been interpreted to include the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II in 1981, which took place on May 13, the 64th anniversary of the apparitions. The Holy Father attributed his escape from certain death to the intervention of Our Lady: “... it was a mother's hand that guided the bullet's path and in his throes the Pope halted at the threshold of death.”
What is the central meaning of the message of Fatima? Nothing different from what the Church has always taught: it is, as Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict the XVI, has put it, “the exhortation to prayer as the path of “salvation for souls” and, likewise, the summons to penance and conversion.”
Perhaps the most well known utterance of the apparition of Our Lady at Fatima was her confident decalaration that “My Immaculate Heart will triumph”. Cardinal Ratzinger has interpreted this utterance as follows: “The Heart open to God, purified by contemplation of God, is stronger than guns and weapons of every kind. The fiat of Mary, the word of her heart, has changed the history of the world, because it brought the Saviour into the world—because, thanks to her Yes, God could become man in our world and remains so for all time. The Evil One has power in this world, as we see and experience continually; he has power because our freedom continually lets itself be led away from God. But since God himself took a human heart and has thus steered human freedom towards what is good, the freedom to choose evil no longer has the last word. From that time forth, the word that prevails is this: “In the world you will have tribulation, but take heart; I have overcome the world” (Jn 16:33). The message of Fatima invites us to trust in this promise.
