Homily: Sixth Sunday of Easter: 2007

Brothers and sisters, today we hear our Lord say two very interesting things which I'd like to focus on: "Whoever loves me will keep my word" and "We will come to him and make our dwelling with him." Taking the second part first, we may restate this as: "You are temples of the Holy Spirit." (Although Jesus is speaking of Himself and the Father when He uses the pronoun "we", it is clear He is sending the Holy Spirit -- which the Father [in Jesus' name] will cause to dwell in them, viz., those who love Him.) Now, I don't know about you, but that little piece of the catechism -- and the Scriptures -- was rather ruined for me by the satiric story "A Temple of the Holy Ghost" by Flannery O'Connor in her brilliantly titled "A Good Man Is Hard to Find." So I went back and re-read it yesterday and while it does make fun of the empty-headed Catholic schoolgirls who call themselves "Temple 1" and "Temple 2", their even more ignorant Church of God escorts and the voyeuristic crowd at the freak show at the traveling fair, it doesn't actually attack the idea that we ARE temples of the Holy Spirit. Despite our hypocrisy and our wickedness, the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, does come to us. He comes to teach us, to guide us, even to commune with us in a special way when we consume the Eucharist. But shouldn't a temple be clean? Shouldn't it be presentable? Shouldn't it be uncluttered? Now, you all clean and dress your bodies before you come here, but what about your souls? And what is the dirt in and the damage of the soul? Well, in the novel it was idleness, ignorance and thinly-disguised malice. These things must be swept out before we can receive the Holy Spirit. How to do that? Well, listen to the Word. hear it. Do it. Wash clean your evil thoughts, your cutthroat ambition, and your greed. Grab the broom of prayer, penance and almsgiving. For God's sake, go to confession. Sorry if I sound like a broken record, but the truth must be told. The stakes are very high: your immortal soul.

And the other thing was: "Whoever loves me will keep my word." I like this particular construction as given to us in the NAB: "keep my word." I think it's interesting because in English to keep one's word means to be faithful and to not break a promise. God does that -- and so should we. How hard is that! Especially, perhaps, that "til death do us part" one -- or even "til death" for priests. The grass always seems greener on the other side of the fence. We tell ourselves we have been grievously wounded -- outraged, in fact -- and thus our promises need have no more hold over us. We excuse ourselves from keeping our word. But perhaps we should -- without in the least belittling the crimes and annoyances our spouses have committed against us, without discounting the heavy burdens of celibacy and obedience for priest and religious, without excusing the bitter things we have suffered at the hands of others. Granted. But God will judge; God will avenge -- have no fear. But if you promised something -- at least try to be faithful to it. It's one little thing you can hold on to; one little corner of the world which is yours. And once you break it, it's very hard to get it back.

Let us now profess our faith.