17 May 2026 - up, up, and away?

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

When he had said this, as they were looking on,
he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight.

Jesus ascended to heaven and the Father seated him "at his right hand in the heavens, far above every principality, authority, power, and dominion, and every name that is named not only in this age but also in the one to come". This was an enthronement of the glorified humanity of Jesus, about which we read in today's psalm: "God mounts his throne to shouts of joy: a blare of trumpets for the Lord". But was this mere pomp and circumstance, or was there really a reason for Jesus to say, "it is to your advantage that I go away" (see John 16:7)? 

The reason Jesus gave to explain his going was not immediately intuitive. Why did the coming of the Counselor (or Helper) depend upon it? Could Jesus not stay and still send the Spirit? Yes, perhaps, it was a prerequisite for Jesus to be glorified and enthroned in his humanity in order to connect our own humanity to the circuit of divine power. But we still might imagine that he could have done this well enough while his body remained with us, perhaps on sitting upon a physical throne that corresponded to and represented the heavenly one. But the physical presence of Jesus in the world suggested a certain way of being in relationship with him. It meant that he was to be sought specifically in one place and not others. As God he was of course always present everywhere. But when people wanted to talk to him they went to where they could see his face and hear his voice. With such a mode of presence he was always going to be the primary actor with others approaching him and then deferring to him as he acted through his own human nature. But he wanted to change that relationship so that the human nature which he acted through was our own. The head wanted to henceforth move in the world by moving his body, the Church.

Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations

We tend to look longing after Jesus, transfixed by his departure, hoping that he will come and establish the kingdom himself, but not moving forward ourselves as much as we ought. We need to heed the words of the angels to the apostles and stop standing and looking up at the sky. We need to set about the work entrusted to us, and allow the Spirit Jesus has given us to animate his body. We can do this fearlessly since we do so in union with the one to whom all "power in heaven and on earth has been given". But in order to ensure this connection to him is as robust as possible we must first heed his words wait for the fulfillment "the promise of the Father about which you have heard me speak". We have received the Holy Spirit in our baptism. But we may have never truly opened ourselves to the power he is meant to unleash in our lives. With only a week until Pentecost we are invited to prepare ourselves once more and open ourselves anew to the coming of the Spirit, falling on our hearts and giving us life like the sweet dew of the morning.

And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.

Though we can no longer see him with our physical eyes Jesus is nevertheless more present than ever to the eyes of faith. No doubt this was why Paul prayed for the Ephesian that, "the eyes of your hearts be enlightened that you may know what is the hope". It was not only about their hope in the hereafter that he wanted them to know, but even the "surpassing greatness of his power" not only for those who were dead and saw him face to face, but "for us who believe". The Ascension is therefore not the end of Jesus as Emmanuel, God with us, but rather a new beginning. He remains present among us through Word, Sacrament, and community. But these all conduce to where he truly desires to be present: within us. And when he is present there our chief priority will be to secure that experience for as many others as possible. We too must do our part "and make disciples". We are the arms and legs of Jesus that are moving and reaching to gather all nations into union with him.

Songs In His Presence - The House Of God

Maranatha! Music - Lord I Lift Your Name On High

 

16 May 2026 - full clearance

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

Until now you have not asked anything in my name;
ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.

Jesus was commending to his disciples a new way of praying. It was not like in previous stages of the covenant where, to be sure, people prayed to the Father, but where the truly important matters were handled through chosen mediators. There were different degrees of closeness to God that were possible based on one's status, with the high priest having the highest clearance to access the presence of God. Jesus was not suggesting that his disciples forego the direct route and rely on him to make their requests instead of them. It was not so much "that I will ask the Father for you" as  that "you will ask in my name". It was as though the disciples were given permission to use the access which Jesus himself had to the Father in order to appear before him and make their petitions. 

For the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me
and have come to believe that I came from God.

By faith and love the disciples of Jesus had become so united with him that the Father recognized Jesus in them. It wasn't so much that they were going straight to the Father and leaving Jesus behind, as if in answer to Philip asking, "Lord, show us the Father" (see John 14:7), Jesus pointed him out and stepped aside. No, it was precisely in their union with Jesus himself that they had access to the Father. Jesus revealed him because the more they were united to Jesus the more they experienced his own relationship of mutual love with the Father. This was indeed the only way to have such access. When Jesus said, "I do not tell you that I will ask the Father for you" he meant to imply, not that he wouldn't be involved, but rather that the disciples themselves would be involved, much more than they imagined. It was not Jesus on their behalf alone. Nor was it them without further need of Jesus. It was the union of both before the throne of the Father that would be efficacious in prayer.

Amen, amen, I say to you,
whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you.

We tend to interpret "in my name" to be a caveat that means that prayer doesn't actually relate to things that we desire or that are relevant to us. It seems to mean we have to impose on our wills that of another if prayer is to yield results. And we tend to assume that prayer isn't really that meaningful if it can't get us what we want. And yet, if it does not result in the things we want, or even necessarily in those things that we think are necessary for others or ourselves, it does fulfill us in a different way. It does not necessarily immediate transform the circumstances of our lives or the world. But it is meant to tend to ever increasing joy.

Until now you have not asked anything in my name;
ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.

True joy is found in being united to Jesus and preferring the Father's will to anything else. When we, together with Jesus, ask that his will and not ours be done, and when we mean it, we are never disappointed. And if we trust the Father with trust like Jesus has in him we are not cynical about what he wills or even how he wills it to happen. This means that no matter how things seem in the world we can be routed in peace and in joy. But this requires an active posture of not just tolerating God's will, but desiring it, as Jesus does. He wants to share his joy with us, and does so in the only way he knows how, by bringing us with him to the Father.

For the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me
and have come to believe that I came from God.

If we want to know the Father we need to open ourselves to Jesus revealing him. We no longer live in the ages of where he speaks in figures, where we might imagine that we have to solve the mystery ourselves. Rather, this is the age when the Spirit himself speaks within our hearts.

The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures
but I will tell you clearly about the Father.

We ought not avoid the Father as though he is too distant or unapproachable, much less because of suspicion on our part. We should ask the Spirit of Jesus to help us to know the Father as Jesus knows him, so clearly that asking him for what we need in the name of Jesus feels real to us, rather than like a mere ritual or pretend. When this happens his promise of joy will be realized in us. It is not only not wrong to seek that joy, but it is meant to be a guiding star for our lives.

 

Matt Maher - Run To The Father

 

15 May 2026 - she no longer remembers the pain

Today's Readings
(Audio)

Amen, amen, I say to you, you will weep and mourn,
while the world rejoices;

The world rejoices in the absence of Jesus because it believes this means it is off the hook and can continue business as usual, that no drastic changes of behavior are necessary, and that the usual trifecta of pride, pleasure, and power can still be endlessly pursued. Such joy is not really worthy of the word, and is always short lived. A party of this kind can't go on forever. The longer it is forced to do so the more diminishing are the returns it offers.

The disciples were grieved during the hour of Jesus because he was taken from them, because it was painful, and because they didn't understand why it was necessary or what good could come from it. But there was a process of growth and transformation happening that was leading to a result so great that it made all of the pain negligible by comparison. 

When a woman is in labor, she is in anguish because her hour has arrived;
but when she has given birth to a child,
she no longer remembers the pain because of her joy
that a child has been born into the world.

During our walk of discipleship we often experience grief because of these same reasons. Jesus sometimes seems distant and unavailable, or disinterested, or powerless. We don't understand why we have unmet needs or what good can come from our suffering. We fail to understand the big picture, the way that our hour of pain is truly leading to the coming of new life into the world. 

Eventually, however, the child is born, and sorrow gives way to joy. This ought to inspire us to follow Jesus ever more closely, and teach us to trust him even during the dark and difficult hours that we will always have to face. After all, the life that resulted was much greater than the death that preceded it. The death was temporary, transitional. The life is increasingly lasting and eventually eternal. The wrong attitude is remembering only the pain and deciding on that basis to never have another of these metaphorical children. Instead we are meant to be defined by the joy that results, the truly lasting change, rather than the momentary difficulty. Joy is something in which we can grow, and can mark our lives more and more as we connect ever more deeply with the risen Lord Jesus himself. But we don't typically grow when we avoid the process of growth for fear of the pain that is often entailed. We should celebrate what Jesus has done in our lives and treasure it in our hearts so that we can remember that trusting him is worth it. Then, the next time that trust seems to be all we have, we will cling to it.

But I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice,
and no one will take your joy away from you.

We are shakable because we are not yet fully spiritually mature. But the joy of the risen Lord is unshakable. The more we experience the risen Lord, the more our lives are defined by encountering the fullness of life he offers, the more joy will predominant over sorrow in our lives. This is true even if, for a little while longer, there is more suffering that we must endure. As we grow increasingly united to Jesus himself, our wills become so conformed to his own that we are no longer ever disappointed in not receiving what we want from the Father, since all we want is his will.

Rend Collective - Joy Of The Lord

 

14 May 2026 - command performance?

Today's Readings
(Audio)

If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love,
just as I have kept my Father’s commandments
and remain in his love.

If we view the words of Jesus with suspicion we will not understand him correctly. The point is not that his Father forced him to prove himself in order to earn his love. It is not that we have to prove ourselves to Jesus in order to be loved by him. The point is not demonstrating our loyalty by adherence to arbitrary rules. In fact, we are invited to remain within a love and approval we have already been given as a gift. Keeping the commandments is not about anything arbitrary. Rather, the commandments describe reality itself. In the same way that, at a lower level, gravity is a rule that describes how life on earth functions, which we ignore at our peril, so too do the moral laws given to us by God describe the truth of the way things are. Thus, they cannot be mere suggestions any more than gravity is a suggestion. The point of their being commands is not the imposition of a superior being's will over one who is inferior. After all, Jesus himself was obedient to the Father. The point is that the Father loved Jesus enough to make the all things known to him. And Jesus believed, accepted, and lived in accord with that knowledge. As creatures with free will we have another option. That option is to pretend that the commandments are arbitrary, to respond with suspicion, and to prefer our own view of reality to one which is divinely revealed. But we exercise this option at our peril. In doing so we walk off of a moral cliff, expecting, somehow, not to fall.

I have told you this so that my joy might be in you
and your joy might be complete.

The commandments aren't designed to be repressive or to make us suffer. The reason Jesus came and revealed himself to his disciples and, in turn, to us, was that we might share in the joy of being united with the Father that was properly his own. The Triune God thought the joy the had in one another was so good that they wanted to share it. That was, in a way, the whole reason for creation.

This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.
No one has greater love than this,
to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

On the one hand the goodness and necessity of what Jesus commands seems obviously right and just. But on the other it is often difficult to live out in this fallen world of ours. Love usually entails suffering and sacrifice. But the commandment reminds us that it isn't optional, or only for those who chose to go above and beyond. We are all meant to be defined by love of this kind. To fall short is to fall short of who we are meant to be as human beings. Without the example of Jesus, and his commandment to follow in his footsteps, we would be tempted to excuse ourselves when the going got tough. Without Jesus showing us what love was meant to be we would almost certainly be content to give less than all of ourselves. But he holds us to a higher standard because he desires more for us than even we desire for ourselves.

You are my friends if you do what I command you.
I no longer call you slaves,
because a slave does not know what his master is doing.
I have called you friends,
because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.

Jesus is not arbitrary in the criteria he gives for friendship with him. He desires all of us to be his friends. Yet to be his friends means we need to share his passion. We must want to walk with him on the shared path of the Father's plan. Without this we would have nothing in common with him, no basis on which to establish friendship with him. We can almost hear how excited he is to let us in on the mystery of his Father's will, and the degree to which that matters to him. And we can also hear the degree to which we matter to him in his eagerness to share all of that with us. He is naturally trying to combine the enjoyment of his two favorite things, his Father, and his creatures.

It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you

We tend to get this backwards and assume that it was we who chose Jesus, that it was the result of a carefully calculated cost-benefit analysis on our part. Because we think we initiated the relationship we tend to insist on earning it. But the terms we impose on our worthiness are always our own arbitrary conditions. He already loved us before we thought of him for the first time. We became aware of him because he chose us and was directing our lives toward him all along. But he also has a purpose for us which we did not decide for ourselves, a purpose that is better than anything we could make up, since it directs us beyond ourselves to our destiny with him. That purpose is love. And in this world it takes the form of going forth and bearing fruit. Yet we know that the fruit is not properly our own, but rather the gift of his Spirit working in us. So we need not strive desperately, but rather cooperate with his gentle guidance in our lives.

Switchfoot - Meant To Live

 

13 May 2026 - guide

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.

Jesus did not simply impart to them the full contents of the modern universal Catechism. He knew that they were limited in what they could receive at any one time. He had explained to them the necessity of his death and resurrection as the climactic fulfillment of the Old Testament. But they did not fully comprehend it until after the fact. Once they had seen it and only then did his words about it become more than mere words. We might infer this was true for much of what Jesus had to reveal. Nothing that happened in his life, death, resurrection, Ascension, or in the sending of the Spirit, happened exactly in the way they would have expected. Yet it Jesus had in fact predicted all of it beforehand. It was only once the realities he described became experiences that the disciples were able to make all the necessary connections. It was when his teachings encountered reality that their full depth was revealed. 

What Jesus imparted to his disciples in the deposit of faith was complete, lacking nothing, capable of answering any question. But not all of the questions presented themselves immediately. Thus doctrine only developed when someone like Arius said something that sounded almost true, but not quite. The lived experience of the orthodox faith had to be clarified against all of the many permutations of possible error. What Jesus had said about his relationship with the Father and the Spirit was always the unchanging core. But there were a lot of ways to be wrong about what he said, about who Jesus was. A short list might include Gnosticism, Montanism, Sabellianism, Arianism, Nestorianism, and Monophysitism¹. Because there were so many possible ways to be wrong and only one truth it was necessary for God to provide a way to protect the truth and ensure its availability in subsequent generations. We know the the Scriptures alone were insufficient since most of these famous heresies used them, and found plausible verses that seemed to be in agreement with their teachings, but which were in fact distortions, removed from their proper context.

But when he comes, the Spirit of truth,
he will guide you to all truth.

Jesus promised the Spirit of the truth to his Church. It was a concrete way to ensure that his promise to Peter, that the gates of hell would not overcome it, was guaranteed. After all, losing the truth was to lose everything, since Jesus told us that, "the truth will set you free" (see John 8:32).

Yet the promise of all truth had to extend beyond the Church to the lives of individual believers, although not in the same way or to the same degree. Believers could not be expected to all be such scholars as to determine the true Church from others on their own. They would need the Spirit within them to direct them toward the full manifestation of the Spirit in the Church. The Church herself was radiant with truth in such a way as to be a supernatural sign to believers. And this would correspond to a growing hunger in them for a truly timeless truth, and a definitive source of meaning, a hunger placed in them by the Spirit himself. This too would only happen as they gradually become more open and ready to receive it. We see this in the reading from Acts this morning, where some didn't listen, some wanted to hear more later, and some converted immediately. It was not the clever words of Paul alone that made the difference. It was their openness to the guidance of the Spirit in their hearts. Paul himself would later lean into this aspect of evangelization, about which he said, "my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power" (see First Corinthians 2:4). He learned that too much cleverness could obscure the core of the message, and the necessity of faith to receive it. The more practiced at evangelization he became the more he learned to allow the Spirit to speak for himself.

He will not speak on his own,
but he will speak what he hears

The Spirit doesn't guide us into innovation in the form of clever new ideas with no historical precedent. Rather he guides us ever more deeply into the words of Jesus himself, since "he will take from what is mine and declare it to you". But this content remains relevant, illuminating not only the past, but even the future since he "will declare to you the things that are coming". We tend to prefer innovation, assuming that we already tried standard textbook Christianity and achieved only a mediocre result. But more probably the words of Chesterton on the subject also apply to us: "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried". So rather than seek something new, let's try it the way it was meant to be tried: in the power of the Spirit. As we move through Easter and toward Pentecost there is no better time than now to invite him to fill us once more.

¹) Learn  more about the Great Heresies at Catholic Answers.

 

John Keating - Come Holy Spirit

 

12 May 2026 - convicted

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

"Now I am going to the one who sent me,
and not one of you asks me, 'Where are you going?'
But because I told you this, grief has filled your hearts.

The disciples were sad because  the best and most loving person they ever knew told them he was leaving them. He had predicted has coming death, but they could not see this is anything other than an unintended disaster. Jesus, though, continued to insist that it was a part of the plan. His going forth from them was not merely in death via the cross, but also victoriously via the Ascension. Because his visible withdrawal from the world was actually the result of his plan, because it was actually the procession of his victory, and leading to his enthronement in heaven, it had the potential to produce immense results even on earth that the disciples had not imagined.

But I tell you the truth, it is better for you that I go.
For if I do not go, the Advocate will not come to you.
But if I go, I will send him to you.

Somehow the invisible mission of the Holy Spirit would surpass even the visible presence of Jesus. The ministry of Jesus was confined to a single locality at a time. But the Holy Spirit would be able work everywhere at once, and without the need for rest. Jesus conveyed the truth in a way that was still external to those who heard him. But the Spirit would testify from within peoples' own hearts. 

And when he comes he will convict the world
in regard to sin and righteousness and condemnation

When we here this trifecta of conviction we might first think they aren't so wonderful that we would trade them for the presence of Jesus. But if we consider them more deeply we will realize their importance. 

The Holy Spirit would convict the world of sin. Where previously people tended to blame others they would learn of the reality of their own culpability. The Spirit would bypass the external defenses of peoples personalities in order to reveal to them their own hearts. But this conviction was not condemnation. It implied the possibility of change, and included the invitation to transformation. The focus was chiefly on the matter of belief in Jesus himself. They would come to see the ways in which they were resisting his appeals, the fact that their unbelief was in fact culpable. They would come to see that it wasn't merely that Jesus hadn't done enough or said enough to be persuasive. Rather they had put him too the test by setting the bar unreasonably high. But when they realized this they would be free to open their hearts to him.

Moreover, the Spirit would help believers to understand in a deep and experiential way the reality of the victory of Jesus. The world held him to be a criminal. And even in our day it does not think highly of many of his teachings. But the Spirit would join believers directly to the one the Father vindicated by raising him from the dead. It was the resurrection power of Jesus that also gave new life to those who were reborn in him. Thus, they were meant to be overwhelmingly convicted of the validity of his claims. The resurrection was to be a reality so central to their lives that they could not second guess Jesus or his words even when the whole world seemed to oppose them. It is confidence of this sort that we see in the scene from Acts where Paul and Silas were in prison, yet still singing praise. They were able to escape, yet stayed to share the Gospel.

We are still tempted to believe that this world is ultimately in the grip of the evil one. It doesn't often look like a place under the sway of divine providence, at least as far as appearances are concerned. If not the devil, we often concede, at least at the level of our feelings, that we dwell in an uncaring world, ruled by abstract laws, or impersonal chance. But in Jesus we already share in the victory over the way things now seem. We already possess the reality of his heavenly victory, which will one day extend even to the physical creation. This makes it possible for us to live with hope in a fallen world. It makes us certain that there is a point to everything, and in particular to our efforts for the name of Jesus.

But Paul shouted out in a loud voice,
"Do no harm to yourself; we are all here."
He asked for a light and rushed in and,
trembling with fear, he fell down before Paul and Silas.
Then he brought them out and said,
"Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"
And they said, "Believe in the Lord Jesus
and you and your household will be saved."

Matt Maher - Because He Lives (Amen)

 

11 May 2026 - testimony

Today's Readings
(Audio)

I have told you this so that you may not fall away.

From this statement we can know that it is possible to fall away. It might seem as though this should not be the case, as though once we have known the mercy and love of Jesus that we could never forget him. We know that there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus (see Romans 8:1). But we also know that it is possible for those who are in Christ Jesus to not remain in him, else he would not waste words saying to us "Abide in me" (see John 15:4). Like even his own disciples, it is possible to make the mistake of putting ourselves first and leaving him. It is possible through our actions to choose the kingdom of this world to a degree that renders us unfit for the kingdom of God. In many ways this makes our condition worse than being without Jesus in the first place (see Second Peter 2:20). But it only remains worse if we do not repent. As long as we return to the Lord he can use even our sin to help dispose us toward humility and docility in the future. We can become even more unshakable in our devotion to him, more firmly united to his abiding presence.

They will expel you from the synagogues;
in fact, the hour is coming when everyone who kills you
will think he is offering worship to God.

From the perspective of the world robust and orthodox Christianity does not seem normal. It seems rather more like a plague to be eradicated. It seems hostile not only to supposed legitimate moral freedom, but even to the healthy self-image of individuals. Humility is antithetical to the aspirations of the world. The word does not admit of the possibility of culpable error in oneself but only of mistakes committed through ignorance. But because we know ourselves, we know better than that. We know that we have at times known what we should do and failed to do it. We have known what we ought not to have done and yet did it nonetheless. Does it hurt our feelings to know that we are not only not all knowing but not even consistently good? Of course. But should we have artificial feelings based on false pretenses? If we do, it will make it almost impossible to find a cure.

The world outside of us is always at work normalizing something other than Christianity. Sometimes Christianity is directly villainized. Other times the world urges a mediocre and lukewarm version of Christianity that is not dangerous to its hegemony. But both of these poisons infect the very water we drink. It is hard not to internalize some of their implications even without realizing it. And the more this subtle process happens without notice the more likely we are to find ourselves more aligned with the world than with Christ and to eventually make the choice to leave him.

When the Advocate comes whom I will send you from the Father,
the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father,
he will testify to me.

We need a voice, one in addition to our own memory, or the merely human voice of the shepherds who have charge over us in the Church. We need the testimony of the Spirit who can win the battle against the world from within us, not merely from the outside. He can remind us of what is true and help us to keep things straight when we are tending toward confusion. We might not be able to persuade ourselves that the world is wrong when it just seems so normal. Even the arguments we craft to convince ourselves might not be convincing enough, even when they are true arguments. We need the voice of the Spirit within us. Just as no one had ever spoken in the way that Jesus did, with authority, so too does the Holy Spirit speak with authority in our souls, in a way that is not possible for others, not possible even for ourselves.

And you also testify,
because you have been with me from the beginning.

If we want to testify to Jesus (and we should at least want to want that) then we need to be rooted in a principle that is more unshakable than ourselves. We need to possess a testimony that can give us certainty no matter how strongly the world opposes. It is often as though we expect that evangelization of the culture ought to always be easy and smooth. But this is more likely to be the exception than the rule. Easy evangelization might more often be merely self-congratulation among people who mostly already agree. But we are called to let the light of Jesus shine in the darkness. The darkness can and will overcome us alone. But it will not overcome him and us together, united in the power of his Spirit. Evangelization is not finally about human efforts or decisions. It is about preparing the way for the Lord and letting him do the work, as we see in our reading from Acts.

One of them, a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth,
from the city of Thyatira, a worshiper of God, listened,
and the Lord opened her heart to pay attention
to what Paul was saying.

Songs In His Presence - Abide, O Lord