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FINDING LIFE IN JESUS THROUGH THE SPIRIT PRESENT IN THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY
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05-08-2014, 04:13 PM
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FINDING LIFE IN JESUS THROUGH THE SPIRIT PRESENT IN THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY
FINDING LIFE IN JESUS THROUGH THE SPIRIT PRESENT IN THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY
SCRIPTURE READINGS: ACTS 8:26-40; JN 6:44-51 http://www.universalis.com/20140508/mass.htm Easter, as we know, is a celebration of life. On the third week of Easter, we are called to reflect on how one can possess this new life. The answer is clear: sharing this life is nothing else but sharing in the life of the Trinity. Today’s scripture readings tell us that it is the Father who draws us to Jesus in the Spirit. Jesus has been sent by the Father so that we can share the life of God through Him. After all, only He who has seen God can reveal God to us. The question is, how can we be drawn to Jesus today? The fact is that we have no physical contact with Jesus. That may be true, but we can certainly have a personal contact with Jesus. For us today, as Christians, we come into contact with Jesus primarily through the Word or the scriptures. In the gospel, Jesus affirms Himself as the bread of life that has come now from heaven. In eating of this bread, we find life. This does not mean that a mere understanding of the text is sufficient. What is important is that behind the text, we must discover the person of Jesus. It is when we come to acquire the vision and mind of Jesus and His life that we find life. In other words, the Word that we read cannot simply be some mere insights or beautiful thought, as if salvation is by gnosis or enlightenment alone. Nay, we cannot be considered to have grasped the Word if we have not yet come to grasp the person behind the Word. But it is not only in the Word that we come to know Jesus personally. More than the Word alone, Jesus wants to give Himself to us personally and totally in the Eucharist. It is in the Eucharist that we receive Jesus sacramentally and experience His personal presence in us. In the gospel, Jesus declares Himself to be the Bread of life that has come down from heaven. “Anyone who eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world.” This Bread of life of course refers to both the Word of God and the Eucharist. But how can we find the person of Jesus behind the Word and in the Eucharist? It is only possible through His Spirit. It is the Spirit of Jesus that can lead us to Him. Indeed, it is His Spirit that will come to reveal to us who Jesus is and make Jesus present to us. In the first reading we read how the Holy Spirit has been instrumental in directing Philip in his work of evangelization. It was Philip’s sensitivity and docility to the Spirit that enabled the Spirit to work in and through him, prompting him to reach out to the eunuch and going to new places to evangelize. The Spirit is essential if we want to find Jesus in the scriptures or in the Eucharist. This is because if we read the scriptures or receive the Eucharist without the Spirit, we will never come to know Christ fully. The Holy Spirit is given to the Church precisely for this purpose; so that He might call to mind and deepen our understanding of what Jesus had taught us when He was on earth. But where can we find the Spirit when reading the scriptures? The Spirit is concretely present in the Christian community of faith. It is through the believing faith community that we come to be in touch with the Spirit. Without Philip, who is representative of the Christian community, the eunuch would not have been able to come to understand the text of what he was reading. The Christian interpretation of the Old Testament text of Isaiah would not have been possible without the guidance of Philip. Unless the Old Testament is read in the perspective of Christ, we would not be able to see the fulfillment of God’s plan. It was Philip’s personal encounter with Christ that enabled him to read the text in the light of Christ. This means that any encounter with the Spirit of the Risen Christ can only take place within the community of faith. The Christian community of faith is where the Risen Christ lives in His Spirit. It is this same community of faith that gave concrete existence to the Bible. Without the Church, we would only have many writings about Christ, but there would be no bible since no one would know which books are inspired and therefore the writings would never have been collected together as one book, which we call the Bible. Since the Bible is produced by the Church with God as the author who inspired the writers, then necessarily scriptures must be interpreted within the context of the community of faith guided by the magisterium. Otherwise we would not have the correct interpretation of the Word of God. If the Word of God is self-explanatory, the eunuch would not need Philip to help him understand the scriptures. So too, for an authentic understanding of scriptures, we need the Church to explain to us the truths concerning our salvation that the scriptures want to convey to us. That is why those who read the scriptures without the help of the faith community would not be able to come to know the full Christ, since the full Christ is experienced by the whole community. Similarly, those who read the scriptures outside the Church will never understand its full meaning, its sensus plenior. Hence, non-Christians like Ghandi, who read the scriptures, are not converted because they did not understand the Christian meaning of the scriptures. What is true concerning the reading of scriptures is equally true regarding the Eucharist. Receiving Jesus is not simply receiving Christ sacramentally present in the Eucharist. This is not sufficient. Christ is also present in a real way in the Church, the body of Christ. It is in our fellowship with fellow believers that we come to experience the love and compassion of Jesus concretely. In the Christian community, Christ is truly present in Spirit. In the Christian community, which is His body, He being the Head, we come into personal contact with Christ in our fellow brothers and sisters, thereby finding courage, strength and unity. Of course, it is the same Holy Spirit that makes Jesus’ presence in the sacred species of bread and wine possible through the priest who offers the sacrifice of the mass. Within this context, therefore, we can understand why the encounter with Christ is very much connected with baptism, confirmation and the Eucharist. It was through Philip that the eunuch came to receive his faith and got baptised and received the Spirit. It would also be through the Christian community, especially in the celebration of the Eucharist, that the Word is rightly heard and enfleshed in the sacrament of the Eucharist and concretely in the experience of fellowship within the Christian community. Hence, today, if we really want to come to know Christ personally, both in spirit and in the flesh, so to speak, then we must intensify our union with the Christian community. We must seek Christ in the community, for He cannot be found outside the community. In celebrating the Eucharist, we are saying that Christ is present in a par excellence manner, not only in the sacrament but in the Christian community that lives the life of the gospel and the life of Christ fully. It is here that we draw life, understand the Word in its fullness and come to know the whole Christ present in different ways in each one of us. Written by The Most Rev Msgr William Goh Archbishop of Singapore © All Rights Reserved ___________________________ Best Practices for Using the Daily Scripture Reflections |
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FINDING LIFE IN JESUS THROUGH THE SPIRIT PRESENT IN THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY - stephenkhoo - 05-08-2014 04:13 PM
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