8 May 2014 - fire eaters

8 May 2014 - fire eaters

“Do you understand what you are reading?”
He replied,
“How can I, unless someone instructs me?”

Do we understand the Scriptures when we read them?  A fair answer is the response of the eunuch.  How can we, unless we are instructed?  We have certainly experienced those barriers and roadblocks that try to stop us as we delve into God's word.  Yet we remain fascinated with it.  It is not like the other words of which our lives are so full.

But it is a very specific kind of instruction we need, as Jesus tells us:

They shall all be taught by God.

And since no one "has seen the Father except the one who is from God" that one, Jesus, is the source of the understanding we need.  Our own efforts, all merely human wisdom, and teachers reasoning with merely human ability are ultimately insufficient.

"See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ." (cf. Col. 2:28)

We should like to sit at the feet of Jesus and ask him all sorts of questions about what Scripture means.  But he is reigning in heaven.  What do we do, practically, to gain wisdom and understanding?

The secret is (as often) the Holy Spirit by whom we are anointed in baptism and confirmation.

As for you, the anointing that you received from him remains in you, so that you do not need anyone to teach you (cf. 1 Joh. 2:27)

Jesus promises that the Holy Spirit will guide us into all truth (cf. Joh. 16:13).  Let this remind us that we don't have the truth automatically and that we need a guide to get to it.

But what about our brothers and sisters?  Surely the mature among them can help to guide us.  Yet Jesus cautions such brothers, "But you are not to be called 'Rabbi,' for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers" (cf. Mat. 23:8).

And yet we see Philip impart wisdom to the eunuch from Ethiopia.  Is this a contradiction?  He seems to be acting as a teacher even though we only have one teacher.  But all is not what it seems on the surface.  When we listen in we see that Philip is being guided by the Spirit who places him there in the first place when he says "Go and join up with the chariot."  Together, Philip and the eunuch seek the wisdom of the Holy Spirit.  This wisdom manifests more through one for the benefit of another, but it is the Holy Spirit who teaches.  This is a microcosm of the larger Church.  The Church is, as Paul tells us, "the pillar and foundation of truth" (cf. 1 Tim 3:15).  What that must mean, then, is that it is filled with the Holy Spirit in a way that makes it an all together reliable guide for us.  

From the bottom to the top of the Church the Spirit is speaking to his people, leading them into all truth.  He wants us to be as open to this truth as Philip is.  He wants to be able to send us out to talk to others.  And at the same time he wants us to have the assurance that we can turn to the Church for the explanations we need when we find ourselves in situations like that of the eunuch.

How do we respond to this in a practical way?  How do we open ourselves more to the teaching of the Holy Spirit, both to receive that teaching and to share it with others?  We come to Jesus who pours that Spirit out on us.  He is the one who fills us with the Spirit in our baptism and confirmation and it is he who fans the Spirit into flames in us when we ask.

But practically, how do we come to Jesus for this?   

I am the living bread that came down from heaven;
whoever eats this bread will live forever;
and the bread that I will give
is my Flesh for the life of the world.”

He gives us his very life in the Eucharist which is to say the life of the Spirit.  That is why Saint John Paul the Great quotes Saint Ephrem who says that "He who eats it with faith, eats Fire and Spirit."  Let us receive with faith so that we will be as free as Philip to proclaim Jesus.

Come and hear, all you who fear God,
while I recount what has been done for me.
I called to him with my mouth;
praise was upon my tongue.