Sunday, May 1, 2005
St. Joseph the Worker

1st Reading: Acts 8:5-8,14-17
They received the Holy Spirit

Philip went down to a town of Samaria and proclaimed the Christ there. All the people paid close attention to what Philip said as they listened to him and saw the miraculous signs which he did. For in cases of possession, the unclean spirits came out shrieking loudly. Many people who were paralyzed or crippled were healed. So there was great joy in that town.

Now, when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that the Samaritans had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. They went down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, for he had not as yet come down upon any of them since they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. So Peter and John laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit.

2nd Reading: 1st Peter 3:15-18
Suffering with the mentality of Christ

Dear brothers and sisters, bless the Lord Christ in your hearts. Always have an answer ready when you are called upon to account for your hope, but give it simply and with respect. Keep your conscience clear so that those who slander you may be put to shame by your upright, Christian living. Better to suffer for doing good, if it is God's will, than for doing wrong.

Remember how Christ died, once and for all, for our sins. He, the just one, died for the unjust in order to lead us to God. He died as humans do, but was raised to life by the Spirit.

Gospel: Jn 14:15-21
The Father will give you the Spirit

Jesus said to his disciples, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments; and I will ask the Father and he will give you another Helper to be with you forever, that Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him for he is with you and will be in you.
"I will not leave you orphans, I am coming to you. A little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me because I live and you will also live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father and you in me, and I in you.

"Whoever keeps my commandments is the one who loves me. If he loves me, he will also be loved by my Father; I too shall love him and show myself clearly to him."

Commentary

IN this Easter season we are being taught by the Word of Jesus, the Scriptures, in the power of the Spirit all that is necessary for us to live and to love as the servants and friends of God in the world. Jesus speaks to us as intimates, those devoted to him and in love with God the Father as he has loved God the Father. We are invited into that love and by the power of the resurrection life shared with us in baptism we are all summoned to love, to express that love and live it out in the world, loving in obedience and gratefulness for having been so loved by God in Jesus. It is the gift of the Spirit, the first gift given to those who believe that it teaches us, reminds us, inheres in us, binding us as one to the Father and Jesus. We know that Jesus and we are one in the Father by the power of the Spirit who is our Helper. This Spirit is given in baptism, but it is given to the Church, to communities for help in loving in a world that resists and is not always open to the Word of God. We must remember and let the Spirit lay claim to our lives.

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