OUR APOLOGIES!
I support “re-cycling” in all areas except homilies and reflections. Due to technical difficulties, last week’s Reflection was a “repeat.” On the other hand, the message that is repeated in the Readings throughout the Easter Season is the need to live in love. So, maybe it was the Holy Spirit Who caused the technical difficulty…just to reinforce the call to LOVE!
Peace!
Fr. Kelly

 

The Perfect GPS…The Holy Spirit
Ascension of the Lord
May 17, 2015
MK 16:15-20

No matter how smart my “smart phone” might be, while directing me to a place where I’ve never been before, it seems like it takes forever to get there. In addition, the greater the distance to be traveled, the higher the anxiety level, especially if I’m expected at a specific time. Moreover, there are those occasions when Siri and I do not seem to be communicating. Her instructions and the compass on my dashboard are clearly in conflict. But, the trip home…even though it’s the same distance…always seems to go much, much faster.

As we bring this Easter Season to a close, with the celebration of the Feast of the Ascension, spend some time reflecting on the 30-something-year journey that Jesus made from Bethlehem to Calvary; the journey mapped out for Him in the Old Testament. He did have a map to follow. The Prophets gave a detailed description of the route His life would take. Likewise, The Lord was guided by the perfect GPS…The Holy Spirit. Still, once He came to understand and accept that His final destination in this world would be the top of a hill outside the walls of Jerusalem on a specific day…Good Friday…it’s quite possible His trip took on the air of anxiety, doubt, and questions…like any “first-time trip.”

Certainly, during the 40-day rest stop in the desert, Jesus questioned the direction in which His life was moving. The scenery along the way must have seemed as unending as the red clay fields of Georgia on a road trip to Florida, or the hills of Pennsylvania rolling past the window on either side of the expressway heading east. Jesus’s unending scenery was the poor, the outcast, the dejected, the blind and lame and deaf…and, of course, sinners. It never ended. They just kept coming in a steady stream, calling out for help. There was a major detour just before arriving at Calvary. The evening in the Garden of Olives was both temptation and opportunity for Jesus to change directions. But He continued to follow the route mapped out for Him for all eternity. No matter how tempted or frustrated or confused, Jesus never once deviated from the path of LOVE! The Ascension of the Lord is all about Jesus’s glorious and very brief trip home. He simply slipped out of time and returned to eternity. But His triumphant return to heaven was made possible only because of His “first-time trip” through life in this world…Bethlehem to Calvary…on the highway of LOVE.

Throughout the Easter Season, our Readings have stressed the need for us to stay the course. Jesus shows us “The Way,” which is LOVE! Life is a first-time, actually only-time journey for each of us. For some, there will be detours, false starts, mishaps, and delays. Many will find the trip especially tiresome or unnerving. The Good News is that we have The Good News as a ready reference to help us get back on the path when, through human weakness, we deviate. And then, of course, there is the Holy Spirit, constantly speaking to our hearts…suggesting the best and easiest route to our final destination; the Holy Spirit, always eager to “recalculate” so that we can find our way back to LOVE…and someday, when our trip through this life is complete, enjoy a return home as gentle and glorious as Jesus’s. TRAVEL SAFE THIS WEEK!