Homily

Sunday, May 4, 2008, Ascension, Year A (Transferred from Thursday to Sunday)
Assumption Grotto Parish, Detroit

You Will Receive Power

            Today is the solemnity of the Ascension. Forty days after the resurrection, our Lord was taken body and soul into heaven. When this happened, he said to the eleven apostles, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

            This very verse has been the subject of prayer and meditation by young Catholics around the whole world. Our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, the memory of whose visit to our country is still strong and has deeply touched our hearts, proposed this verse as the motto and theme of World Youth Day 2008. Why did he chose this verse?

            The answer to this question has been made very evident in the countless homilies, sermons and discourses of the first few years of his Pontificate, whenever he has mentioned young people: he hopes in them. He does not hope in the older generation, but in teenagers and college kids. The older generation has by and large sided with sin, except for a chosen few souls such as yourselves who are here early on Sunday morning to confess your sins and worship God through the Eucharist.

            But look around you, and what do you see? Scandalous bishops, unfaithful priests, broken families, abortion, contraception, drugs, crime, greed, omission, gangs, and every other from of arrogance and sin. The Pope appeals to the young people, because they haven’t become hardened in their ways. And if they can be freed from their sins and sinful inclinations, the “power” with which they could be apostles to the world is something none of us could begin to measure.

            For the “power” which they will possess will be the Holy Spirit himself. This is why the Lord told the Apostles, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit will come upon you.” Not only the young people, but all of us who have received the sacrament of confirmation have also received this power.

            What kind of power is it? There are some forms of power that are outside of man, some are inside of man, and some are above man. Outside of man, there is the power of a hurricane or earthquake, the power of electricity and gun powder, or the power of money and of engines. Inside of man, there is the power of his muscles and of his will, the power of politics and authority, the power of everything his culture develops. Men with no faith know of no other powers in the whole world than these and the like.

            Yet there is a power which is above man, and it comes from God, and this power is the Holy Spirit. For the Holy Spirit is God himself, the Spirit of the Son and the Father. His essence and substance and divine nature are identical to his divine love. The power that God has given us is the power of charity.

            Charity exceeds ordinary human love because by charity we love in union with God and because of God. It is this charity by which Christ died for sinful men. It is this charity by which the martyrs died blessing those who tortured them. This is the charity of countless missionaries who have gone to the ends of the earth, even in our day and age, to dedicate their lives to the Gospel. It is this charity which drives souls to enter the priesthood or religious life, and to live holy marriages.

            Without this charity, the power of our efforts or words to convert others will fall on deaf ears, and be as clanging gongs, full of noise, maybe even full of fleeting beauty, but eventually empty and passing.

            The best way to grow in this charity is to stay in the state of grace. Sin is the worst enemy to every apostle; and every baptized soul is in some way an apostle. Avoid sin! Sin is the enemy of the gospel, the anti-power set against God. The best form of love you can show God or neighbor is to become a saint. You have received the power to become a saint, because the Holy Spirit lives within you. With the help of the Blessed Virgin Mary, especially in this month, her month, May, cooperate with the grace of God, for your salvation, and for the salvation of the whole world. Amen.