Ascension - Homily 5

Homily 5 - 2024

Today’s Readings, each in its unique way, finished up on a truly “up-beat” note. The world was there to be embraced.

1. In the First Reading the disciples saw themselves commissioned by Jesus to be his “witnesses not only in Jerusalem, but throughout Judaea and Samaria, and indeed to the ends of the earth.”

2. And then, the author of the last few lines of the Gospel according to Mark, spoke of the disciples “sent out to the whole world … to proclaim the Good News to all creation.” And rejoiced how, in fact, they had “preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word by the signs that accompanied it.”

Today, two thousand years later, it looks to many that something seems to have gone badly wrong. How do we make sense of a Church that seems to be growing smaller by the day?

Personally, while I am concerned, I do not worry. It is God’s Church, not ours, even though God entrusts the present and the future of the Church still to us. The world has changed before, across those two thousand years; people and cultures have changed. And it is not the first time that the Church over its long history has had to change to meet new and challenging situations. It is not the first time that good people have worried deeply, that saints even have come on line with conflicting solutions, no one knowing with certainty what to do.

Even a superficial knowledge of Church History can be very reassuring. Among the successful changes was the spiritual renewal led by the monks who went out to pray in the deserts of Syria and Egypt from the second to the fourth centuries. Following that, as Roman civilisation in Europe began to crumble, Benedictine Monasteries began to spring up all over Europe. Then, as European cities also began to flourish once more, they ushered in an intellectual and theological renewal through the famous Universities that were built in the major cities. The compelling need over time to evangelise the cities and the surrounding countrysides saw the foundation of the mendicant orders of religious such as the Franciscans and Dominicans and others. Since then, depending on needs, congregations of active women religious, and male religious too, were founded, dedicating their energies and their spiritual resources to the education of children and the nursing of the sick and the elderly.

History has been an un-ending litany of familiar responses no longer serving the changing needs of a developing world scene; and new ones springing up with new visions and charisms.

The need confronting today’s Church is to listen carefully to the leading of the Holy Spirit. And we have every reason to listen confidently.

Jesus insisted confidently himself during his Last Supper when he said: “The Paraclete, the holy Spirit that the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything”.

The challenge is to learn how to listen to God’s teaching Spirit. Most of us are not used to doing so. How do we as Church, as institution, not just as individuals, listen to the Spirit?

We have been learning these past few years. The diocese has been working at it. The Australian Church, Bishops, priests and laity, were working at it, leading up to, and at, the Plenary Council. The world Church has been working at it over these past three and a half years. The process is called synodality. It involves everyone honestly speaking our minds, and listening carefully to each other, and to God’s Spirit, as clearly and respectfully as we can. It means seeking for the solution that we can all own as the best solution of this group of different individuals.