Wednesday of the Sixth Week of Easter
“The Spirit of truth” … will declare to you the things that are coming.”
Yes, and these things have come! But they are not “these things” but this “thing”, the reality, Christ! The Lectionary used at mass speaks of this reality:
“’The purpose of the homily at Mass is that the spoken word of God and the Liturgy of the Eucharist may together become ‘a proclamation of God’s wonderful works in the history of salvation, the mystery of Christ.’ Through the readings and homily Christ’s paschal mystery is proclaimed; through the sacrifice of the Mass it becomes present.
‘A proclamation of God’s wonderful works in the history of salvation, the mystery of Christ.’
There is a comma after ‘the history of salvation.” It is helpful punctuation! What we do in the Eucharist is to proclaim God’s wonderful works. The summit of God’s work is the mystery of Christ. Each night at compline the Church hears it in Simeon’s words: “have seen your salvation,’ (Lk 2: 31) or, “your saving deed.”
We do well to remember what the author to the Hebrews says: Yet all these [the OT heroes of faith], though they were commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better so that they would not, apart from us, be made perfect. (Heb 11:39f) That “something better” is this “saving deed,” the mystery of Christ. It is what “The Spirit of truth” teaches us – here in the Sacred Liturgy and in our hearts! The Holy Spirit wants to teach us that the mystery that is Christ includes us! We become members of what St. Augustine called, the totus Christus, the “whole Christ,” coming to glory.
The Mexican Blessed, Conchita, heard Jesus tell it to her in these words:
Look and take in the silence and the power of the Eucharist, and reproduce me in all your being. I want to put my living heart in yours, and if you allow me, to take away your bad dispositions and vices. It will no longer be you who live, but I will live in you a life of intimacy, through a divine transformation on the part of the Holy Spirit living in you.
Reflection by Fr. Xavier Nacke, OSB
Posted in Article for Easter, Daily Reflections