Sunday Gospel Reflection, May 17, 2026: You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you...

You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you…
Are we ready to exercise the power of Christ’s love? 

    We are always in a state of misunderstanding. Faith can and will lead us to understanding, but it is a process, not a fiat. The early Christian community was left with many questions when Jesus ascended to heaven: When will he be back? How will he return? In the Acts of the Apostles, they ask outright, Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel? Before he ascends, Jesus needs them to finally recognize that his power is not intended to topple regimes but to win hearts. The power Jesus gives his disciples – and that he gives us – is the power to love and to love profoundly, to love past barriers. We are still working toward mastering this power. 

    It helps to remember, as Paul tells the Ephesians, that if the eyes of our hearts are enlightened, then we may know what is the hope that belongs to his call. Christ, in dying and rising, did the one thing that could bring salvation: he offered himself for all humanity, a superlative act of love that made him king eternally, seated at the right hand of God in the heavens. But the throne of which Psalm 47 sings, the throne God mounts to shouts of joy, is also and always, for Christians, the enthronement of Jesus Christ in us, for all eternity. 

    To believe this is to have true knowledge of him, which then empowers us – who, like the eleven disciples in Matthew’s Gospel, worship, though we doubt – to go and make disciples of all nations, revealing his love that we choose to participate in, secure in the love that makes him king of our hearts, with us always, until the end of the age. 

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture Class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com

A union that will reveal You to the world (Erin Flynn)

What use is it if I receive You
and do not bear You to the world?
“Mary went in haste…”
What use is it
if I join myself to You in love
and do not love my brother?
“They’ll know you are my disciples…” 

Is it even possible to be
truly united to Goodness
and not share that goodness?
What kind of union is it,
if I stay my same self thereafter? 

Do not allow me to remain as I am, Jesus.
Help me to prepare my heart
for true union with You,
a union that will reveal You to the world
uniquely through me. 

For what use is it if You come to me
and I refuse You to my neighbor? 
What use is it, Lord, if You fill me
and I do not overflow? 

--Erin Flynn               

Image source: Elizabeth Polfus, Overflowing, https://theologyandchurch.com/2017/09/17/a-prayer-on-sunday-11/overflowing/
Quotation source

If God loves us with all his being (Pope Leo XIV)

    If God loves us with all his being, then we too must love one another. We cannot love God whom we do not see without loving our brother and sister whom we do see (cf. 1 Jn 4:20)... 

    In following Jesus, the ascent to God passes through descent and dedication to our brothers and sisters, especially the least, the poorest, the abandoned and the marginalized. What we have done to the least of these, we have done to Christ (cf. Mt 25:31-46). 

    In the face of disasters, wars and misery, we bear witness to God’s mercy to those who doubt him only when they experience his mercy through us. 

--Pope Leo XIV 

Image source: Pope Leo XIV blesses a baby as he greets people before celebrating Mass with those assisted by the Albano diocesan Caritas agency at the Shrine of Santa Maria della Rotonda in Albano Laziale, Italy, Aug. 17, 2025, https://catholicreview.org/burn-with-fire-of-gods-love-pope-says-at-mass-and-lunch-with-the-poor/
Quotation source

Joy and duty (Bishop Robert Barron)

    Joy and commandments: these are not terms that we would readily juxtapose. We usually associate commandments with the carrying out of duty and responsibility, or laying down the law and establishing order and discipline. But all of this seems opposed to joy. 

    We find joy in God alone, for our souls have been wired for God. We must acquire God if we are to be joyful. But here’s the trick—and the whole of the Christian life is on display here: God is love. God is self-emptying on behalf of the other. But this means, paradoxically, that to acquire God is to make of oneself a gift. To have God is to be what God is—and that means giving one’s life away. That alone will make you joyful. 

--Bishop Robert Barron 

Image source: Marc Chagall, Crucifixion, Union Church of Pocantico Hills, New York, https://hudsonvalley.org/article/union-church-of-pocantico-hills-virtual-tour/
Quotation source

What is a Paraclete? (Gerard Manley Hopkins)

     What is a Paraclete? A Paraclete is one who comforts, who cheers, who encourages, who persuades, who exhorts, who stirs up, who urges forward, who calls on, what the spur, and word of command is, to a horse. [The Paraclete] is what clapping is to a speaker, what a trumpet is to a soldier. That is what a Paraclete is to the soul: one who calls us to the good. 

      A Paraclete is just that, something that cheers the spirit of one, with signals and with cries, all zealous, that one should do something and full of assurance that if one will, one can, calling us on, springing to meet us halfway, crying to our ears, or to our heart: This way to do God’s will, this way to save your soul, come on, come on! 

--Gerard Manley Hopkins,
Sermons & Devotional Writings

Image source: https://www.justhorseriders.co.uk/blogs/news/legends-of-the-saddle-the-10-greatest-horse-riders-and-equestrian-disciplines?srsltid=AfmBOorCX-J44yMX7Xrgvbmecqi20pUYf9dhnA9bqAjsDWP_wD_5bBT_
Quotation source

Bless all mothers (A Mother's Day Prayer)

Heavenly Father,
We thank You for the gift of mothers,
through whom Your love is revealed in so many ways.

Bless all mothers:
those who are joyful, and those who are burdened,
those expecting new life, and those who mourn a loss,
those who nurture children now, and those who lovingly remember. 

Grant them strength, patience, and joy in their vocation.

May the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of our Lord,
be their guide and consolation.
Let their sacrifices be honored,
their love returned,
and their hearts filled with peace. 

We ask this through Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Happy Mother's Day to all
who fulfill the role of mother!

Image source: Filippo Lippi, Madonna with Child and Two Angels (ca. 1460-1465), https://mymodernmet.com/madonna-and-child-art-history/
Prayer source

God broke open his own heart in love (Bishop Robert Barron)

     In his passion to set right a disjointed universe, God broke open his own heart in love. The Father sent not simply a representative but his own Son into the dysfunction of the world, so that he might gather that world into the bliss of the divine life. God’s center—the love between the Father and the Son—is now offered as our center; God’s heart breaks open so as to include even the worst and most hopeless among us. 

--Bishop Robert Barron

Image source: https://inspiration.org/spiritual-life/an-open-heart-for-god
Quotation source