9781644135945

The Time After Pentecost
pray, believe that you shall receive, and it shall be done to you” (Communion). Those who meet
Christ at Mass and in Holy Communion will make the same experience as Jairus, the ruler of
the synagogue, and the sick woman of the Gospel, whose prayers were answered.
Meditation
“The Lord saith, I think thoughts of peace and not of affliction. You shall call upon Me, and
I will hear you; and I will bring back your captivity from all places” (Introit). The coming of
Christ at the time of our death and at the end of time means more than judgment; it means
especially the end of our captivity, merciful redemption, and the entrance of the soul into its
eternal and heavenly home. The liturgy directs our gaze to heaven and the blessed life of eternity,
a life that has already begun through our reception of sanctifying grace and through our
incorporation in Christ.
“From whence also we look for the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, who will reform the body of
our lowness, made like to the body of His glory, according to the operation whereby also He is
able to subdue all things unto Himself ” (Epistle). Still we cry out to God “out of the depths” of
our misery in this earthly life. We must still struggle and fight, be subject to temptation and the
occasion of sin at every step. We must still live a life of lowliness and need, the life which Christ
once led on earth and which He still lives here in His members. Just as Christ our head was
not glorified until He had first suffered and died on the cross, so, too, we who are His members
will not see the day of glorification until we have fought the fight of our early life to the end.
Life on earth is a struggle. Only when the last member of the mystical body has fought and
suffered like Christ its head, will perfect redemption be accomplished according to the example
of our Lord. During these last days of the ecclesiastical year, the liturgy awaits and longs for the
day of salvation, the day of our resurrection from the dead, the day which will introduce the
Church to the eternal happiness of heaven. During these last weeks of the Church year we also
lift our thoughts to the true life for which we were redeemed, for which we received baptism,
and for which we received so many powerful graces. “We look for the Savior, our Lord Jesus
Christ, who will reform the body of our lowness, made like to the body of His glory.”
“Our conversation is in heaven” (Epistle). Let us not be numbered among those “of whom
I have told you often (and now tell you weeping) that they are enemies of the cross of Christ; . . .
whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame; who mind earthly things” (Epistle).
At the end of the Church year we should feel that we are on the threshold of our heavenly home.
We are indeed still in this world, but actually we have no concern with this world, at least with
its manner of living and thinking. We must live in the spirit of the Apostle: “This therefore I say,
brethren: The time is short, it remaineth that they also who have wives be as if they had none.
And they that weep, as though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as if they rejoiced not; and
they that buy, as though they possessed not; and they that use this world, as if they used it not.
For the fashion of this world passeth away” (1 Cor 7:29–31). If we take seriously our Christianity,
our membership in the Church and the mystical body, our liturgical life, we do not really live for
time or for this world, but rather for heaven and for eternity. Our thoughts and our desires and
ambitions soar far above all earthly and temporal concerns. We are motivated by our expectation
of the resurrection from the dead and by our hope for eternal life. That is what we are working for.
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