Can I Get a Witness?

Sunday after the Ascension
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  While the official version of the Bible for Catholics is the Nova Vulgata, the New Vulgate, which is Latin, the Gospels themselves were written in Greek.  I took one year of Biblical Greek in Major Seminary, which has helped me with clues as to the meanings of words.  While I can’t really read Greek, certain words still stick out.  Today’s Gospel is a great example.  The Latin, which we heard, talks about testimonium, which in English we translate as “witness.”  But in the Greek, our Lord says that the Apostles (to whom He is speaking in the Upper Room) 𝜇𝛼𝜌𝜏𝜐𝜌𝜀𝜄𝜏𝜀.  Now, some of you are joking that this is Greek to you (in fact, it’s Greek to everyone; it’s Greek).  But that word is connected to the Greek word, whence we get the English word “martyr.”  To be a witness, in Greek, was to be a martyr.  We now associate martyr with the shedding of blood, but the original meaning simply connected to telling the truth as a witness.
    But Christ does not only call the Apostles to be martyrs.  He calls us, all of us, to be martyrs.  Certainly, most of the Apostles, with the exception of St. John the Apostle and Evangelist, did shed their blood it witness to the truth of Jesus Christ and His Gospel.  But dying for the faith was the consequence of their earlier martyrdom, their earlier witness by the spreading of the Gospel by word and by deed.  And God calls us, too, to witness to the Gospel, whether it means the red martyrdom of shedding our blood, or the white martyrdom of dying to our own wills to live for God and bring others into the truth that Christ revealed.  
    We cannot, however, live (or die) as martyrs on our own power.  We need the Holy Spirit to strengthen us to witness to our faith in the Lord.  Without the Holy Spirit, weakness could easily take over, and we could walk away from Christ rather than stay strong in the face of adversity.  And Christ clearly says we will experience adversity.  He tells His Apostles that others will kick them out of synagogues, and even will kill them.  And those who kill them will think they are doing God’s will.  We take for granted that Catholicism separated from Judaism.  But at this point, at the Last Supper in the Upper Room, the Apostles knew nothing other than Judaism, and did not realize fully that Christ would call them to be the foundation of His Church, His new assembly (the Greek word is 𝜀𝜅𝜅𝜆𝜀𝜎𝜄𝛼), the fulfillment of what God had promised the Chosen People.  

    So do we pray to the Holy Spirit?  I’m not only talking about these nine days between the Ascension of the Lord and Pentecost, the first novena which the Apostles and Blessed Mother and other disciples prayed.  But outside these days, do we ask for the strength, wisdom, and other gifts of the Holy Spirit?  There was a heresy in the Church in the fourth century called the pneumatomachianism.  Pneumatomachians did not believe that the Holy Spirit is truly God.  This teaching was condemned by the First Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in AD 381.  But are we closet pneumatomachians?  
    How often do we pray to the Holy Spirit?  Do we treat Him as God, or simply an extra add on that we don’t really need?  Each Sunday we profess in the Creed that the Holy Spirit is the Lord and Giver of Life (Dominum et Vivificantem).  Those are divine titles, as “Lord” is the acceptable way for the Jews to say God rather than saying His sacred Name, revealed to Moses in the tetragrammaton.  We profess that with the Father and the Son the Holy Spirit is adored and glorified (Qui cum Patre et Filio simul adoratur et conglorificatur).  But I think that sometimes we fear reaching out to the Holy Spirit.  We see charismatics, both those in and outside the visible Church, and we become uneasy, because we’re not used to speaking in tongues, or having words of prophecy, or raising our hands when we pray.  And while the Holy Spirit can still move people to speak in tongues, or reveal prophetic words, or even have us raise our hands in prayer at time, those are special gifts which are meant to build up the body of Christ, not the usual gifts that the Holy Spirit always gives: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord; love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
    We do need the Holy Spirit to help us to explain to others the truths of our faith, especially in ways that will convince them, which can vary from person to person.  And just because someone knows the truth, does not mean that they will accept it.  The Holy Spirit helps us go beyond head knowledge to having people accept in their heart as well that Jesus is Lord and that His life leads to happiness and heaven.  The Holy Spirit gives us the courage or fortitude not to cheat our boss or our employees, to use words that befit our Christian dignity, and to love others as Christ loves us, to the best of our ability.  Those are the ways that we live as martyrs, as witnesses.
    You don’t have to know Greek to be a martyr.  You don’t even have to shed your blood to be a martyr.  To be a martyr is to be a witness, and it is a vocation for all those who follow Christ.  But martyrdom, of the red or white variety, is only possible with the strength of the Holy Spirit, given to us in Baptism, and strengthened through Confirmation.  Make it your goal, not only this week, but especially this week, to ask for the help of the Holy Spirit, so that you can be a martyr, a witness, to Christ.  Who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns for ever and ever.  Amen.  

You're [a] Witness

Easter Sunday

            I remember it like it was yesterday.  I left the crowded streets and the hot air and went into the cold building.  I walked straight to the middle and got in line.  I went in to a smaller edifice in the middle.  It was then that I became an eyewitness to the resurrection of Jesus.  You see, I was in Jerusalem on pilgrimage with the first-year seminarians from Sacred Heart, and we were able to enter into not only the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the place where Jesus died, was buried, and rose, but we were also able to enter into the aediculum, the building erected inside the Church over the spot of the tomb that housed Jesus’ body until the resurrection.

The empty Tomb of Christ

            Now, I’m not bringing this up simply because I’m leading a pilgrimage in November 2012.  But it truly was an awesome, and experience filled with the wonder and awe in God’s presence, to go to that very place and, while not running like Sts. Peter and John from our Gospel account today, still becoming someone who can personally testify that Jesus’ body is not there!  He has risen from the dead as He promised!

            But, even though I’d love to have a full pilgrimage, the great news is that you don’t have to travel to Israel to draw into the events which we have just celebrated over this Sacred Triduum.  You don’t have to go to the physical Upper Room, walk to the Garden of Gethsemane outside the old city walls, or walk to the Church of Holy Sepulcher to re-live those powerful events of the Last Supper, Agony in the Garden, Crucifixion, Burial, and Resurrection of Christ.  We live out those three days each Sunday as we gather as the Body of Christ in the Church.  We gather in this room with Jesus who, present in the priest, says to us, “Take and eat; this is my body; take and drink; this is my blood.”  We kneel with Jesus as we prepare for his agonizing death, which then took place on the altar of the cross, and is re-presented for us on this altar as He once more hands over His Body and pours our His Blood for us in the Eucharist.  We see His Body, the same Body which is “seated at the right hand of God,” as St. Paul tells us in the second reading, present to us truly and sacramentally in the Eucharist we receive. 

We become witnesses of the resurrection through these mysteries we celebrate today, and every Sunday, the 8^th day of the week, as we celebrate Easter every time Sunday.  This is why the Church asks, invites, and, yes, requires us to attend every Sunday: because we need to remember the Paschal Mystery each week as it defines who we are as a Church, as a people.  We need that grace of the Eucharist to help us to be faithful disciples, to love others, even the ones who do us wrong, just as Jesus loved those who put Him to death.

            And, as witnesses of the resurrection and the great deeds that God has accomplished in Jesus, we should not be able to keep that Good News, the Gospel, to ourselves.  Knowing how much God loves us, and to what extent that love goes, the message that St. Peter preached in the first reading.  How “God raised [Jesus] on the third day…He commissioned us to preach to the people and testify that he is the one appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead.”  Like any good news that we receive: a new child conceived, a new job, a new car, a good grade on an exam or paper, and any of the earthly news that we can’t wait to tell others, we should want to tell our friends, our roommates, our neighbors, and anyone about the great news of the resurrection and what that means for us: that we can rise with Christ if we are baptized into His death.

            Whether we have seen the empty tomb in Jerusalem or whether we see Jesus among us in His people, in His Word, and in the Eucharist, we are all witnesses of the resurrection.  I hope we share that most joyful of news with others that they may also find new life in their relationship with Christ.