November 18, 2019
Paulist Fr. Rich Andre preached this homily on the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C) on November 17, 2019 at St. Austin Parish in Austin, TX. The homily is based on the day’s readings: Malachi 3:19-20a; Psalm 98; 2 Thessalonians 3:7-12; and Luke 21:5-19.
This year, we’ve worked our way through the Gospel of Luke. It’s the gospel of social justice, the gospel of outsiders, and the gospel of the Holy Spirit. In this next-to-last week, Jesus speaks of the end of the world, echoing the words of the prophet Malachi in our first reading. In almost every moment in the past two thousand years since Jesus uttered these predictions of wars, insurrections, earthquakes, famines, plagues, signs in the sky, and persecutions, people have been convinced that they are living in the moment of which Jesus speaks.
But that’s not the main point of our gospel today. The point is how we are to prepare for the coming trial. Luke tells that only one kind of preparation is necessary: to cultivate our relationship with the Holy Spirit. Since every Paulist has an individual devotion to the Holy Spirit, hopefully I can offer some insights into how we can each cultivate that relationship!
The Spirit dwells within us, mercifully closer to ourselves than our own breathing. Let’s take a moment to acknowledge this amazing grace!
None of us knows when we will be personally affected by an earthquake, a famine, a plague, or a persecution. Jesus tells us not to prepare our defense. But there is another way to get ready. It’s not experience or education that we need. All we need is to trust in the counsel of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus says, “I myself shall give you a wisdom in speaking.” I used to think that this was a literary device that Luke used to explain how the disciples – including awkward, uneducated guys like Peter – would soon give eloquent, persuasive speeches in Luke’s excellent sequel to his gospel, the Acts of the Apostles. Today, I know better. We will receive that same wisdom, as long as we can trust in the Holy Spirit, too!
But perhaps you feel that you don’t know the Holy Spirit well enough to trust in the Spirit. So, how can we spend time getting to know the Spirit?
Well, let’s start with something I may have said before: it’s very hard to commit a heresy when talking about the Holy Spirit. In Hebrew, the word for the Holy Spirit is ruah, which is feminine. In Greek, it’s pneuma, which is neuter. And in Latin, it’s spiritus, which is masculine. So, it’s totally OK to call the Holy Spirit “he,” “she,” or “it”!
So, let me tell you some stories of how I learned to trust in the Spirit. They might sound unique, but I assure you that they’re not. If I can trust in the Holy Spirit, you can trust in her, too!
My school, the Washington Theological Union, did an especially good job with helping me recognize the Spirit in my face-to-face encounters with other people. In our first year, we took classes that weren’t about how to solve anyone else’s problems, as much as they were about us learning how not to impose our problems onto the people who came to us! For the rest of my time at WTU, I was placed in a variety of supervised ministry experiences: visiting patients in a local hospital, assisting with interfaith marriage preparation, accompanying college students and young professionals, running an RCIA process, journeying with Guatemalan and Salvadoran refugees. Every week, my classmates and I had to present complicated situations to one another, and in almost every case, we came away from the reflection exercise seeing the Holy Spirit’s presence in our ministry.
But come to think of it, before I took any theology classes, the Paulist Fathers continually exposed me to the graces of the Holy Spirit. They sent me out on three different ministry assignments when I was a mere novice in the community. In a lot of ways, I was woefully under-prepared. There were definitely times when I stumbled. I remember an especially awkward conversation when I inadvertently became the first person to tell children in a Washington, DC inner-city parish that on Easter Sunday, some people eat lamb. The kids were so repulsed by the concept that it totally derailed the point that I was trying to make! But what was more remarkable was how often and how wildly I succeeded in ministry – for example, leading a group of disparate people in Berkeley, California in a Lenten Bible study group – including housewives, professors, and people with significant mental challenges. This was all the more remarkable since I had never studied the Bible, and I had no training on leading theological discussions or caring for people experiencing mental illness.
But come to think of it, I learned to trust the Holy Spirit even before that. When I was discerning the priesthood, I reached a point when every avenue seemed closed to me. It was then that I really learned to trust the Holy Spirit, because I didn’t have any other options!
In the intervening years, I’ve been led into all kinds of situations in which I’ve felt completely unqualified: devising a ritual for an interfaith baby blessing in Maryland, presiding at a Mass held in a Tennessee prison, counseling families experiencing marital problems in Ohio, being asked to pray for things in Massachusetts that I thought were against the will of God. Time and again, even though I didn’t think I knew what I was doing, people have responded that I’ve provided just what they needed. People regularly tell me that my words and actions are the answer to their prayers. How did I become so skilled?
The answer is obvious: it’s not me. The main skill I’ve acquired is shutting up and allowing the Holy Spirit to work through me. Even today, at a hospital or nursing home, I usually offer what my classmate Edwin called “the Purell prayer” – when I’m rubbing the sanitizer into my hands, I ask the Holy Spirit to work through me. It’s ironic: in my life before the seminary, I lived in a world dominated by the future – at my job, I was expected to think of everything that could possibly go wrong and then stop it from happening. Now, I am often at my best in pastoral situations when I don’t plan ahead, when I’m present in the moment to whatever crosses my desk or to whomever enters my office.
I don’t think I’m especially holy. I just have a life that places me in lots of situations where I get to experience God’s graces. And you know what? You probably feel the same way: you probably think that you’re not especially holy, but you get to experience God’s graces every day, too. So if I can do this, you can do this. Think about it: Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would provide for all of us, not just a select few.
There’s no special knowledge or skill needed to grow in relationship with the Holy Spirit. We all have the ability step back and allow the Holy Spirit to take the lead.