On the front of our bulletin this weekend, you will find a reference to something called “The Life in the Spirit Seminars”. I want to urge you to read it, especially the bit that says: “The (seminars) are designed to bring each participant to a new and deeper relationship with Jesus. Its powerful spiritual experience helps believers to live their lives with joy and hope in a world that is so often opposed to the Spirit”. Then go on to read the address given by Pope Francis, also on the front page of the bulletin. Because the pope specifically mentions the Seminars, which, he says “make it possible for people to encounter the living Jesus, in his word and his Spirit, and at the same time to experience his Church as a welcoming environment, a place of grace, reconciliation and rebirth”. The Seminars, he continues, “are often an engaging and transformative experience that becomes a turning point in people’s lives.” Sound good? Sound like something you might like to have happen to you. Of course it is! That is why Pope Francis encourages us to make these Seminars more widely available.
Well, guess what, brothers and sisters, we are going to make the Life in the Spirit Seminars available in our parishes of St Philip’s and St Clare’s. This Fall, my community of Lift Jesus Higher are putting on the seminars in our parishes, and everyone is invited to take part, free of charge. The seminars will run each Thursday evening from October 3rd to November 14th. So, if you want an “engaging and transformative experience” through a life-changing encounter with God’s Holy Spirit, this is for you! Last weekend, a group of us from the parishes went to a retreat centre in Plantagenet and enjoyed a powerful experience of the Spirit. I think some of us are still “floating” from the weekend. Not everyone can afford to take a whole weekend off to have such an experience. So, the experience is coming to you over the course of seven Thursday evenings starting on October 3rd and continuing on till November 14th. And as the icing on the cake, this will be followed, with an Advent parish mission, from December 9th – 11th by the Servants of the Cross sisters, on the theme of the Healing Power of God.
So a lot to look forward to you, brothers and sisters, especially if you are feeling rather low, spiritually, and not experiencing much of the grace and power of God in your lives. If so, then you find yourself in good company. The people of Israel, in our first reading, are in a wretched, miserable state, exiled far from their home, feeling cast off by God, and immersed in the darkness and gloom of spiritual and physical isolation from God. It is precisely to this people, desolate, barren, distressed, lost and helpless that the words of the prophet Isaiah are addressed in that first reading of ours. If you can picture their present state, and put yourself in their shoes, then you can imagine what effect Isaiah’s words would have had on them. “Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God … He will come and save you!” Wow! What an amazing message to receive, just when they had given up hope on themselves, and on God.
But hold on a moment, why should they believe Isaiah, or any of the other prophets promising them the same thing, such as Hosea, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and so on. Because these prophets of God had been right the first time, when they predicted exactly the same misfortune in which the people now found themselves, because of their sin. There is no prophet mentioned in the Old Testament that does not, along with words of warning of the consequences of rejecting God from their lives, who does not also hold out the hope that, nonetheless, after a time of suffering, that God would bring them back to life and to their homeland. The reason why we have the words of these prophets in our Bible is because they came true. Israel was indeed delivered from the oppression and distress of exile, and returned to their homeland, all through the power and love of their God. God has a great track record on his promises. He always keeps those promises. He is the one whom our responsorial psalm today affirms as “keeping faith forever, executing justice for the oppressed, giving food to the hungry, setting prisoners free, opening the eyes of the blind, and lifting up those who are bowed down”. Yes, he may, and often does, do those things through the help of good people and organizations, but the power and the provision come ultimately from Him.
So when we see Jesus in our gospel, doing what Isaiah prophesied God would do when he came to help his people, causing the ears of the deaf to be unstopped and the mute to sing for joy, then we know one thing for sure. This Jesus is the real thing. He is truly God come to earth. In the Jewish tradition, it was believed that the Messiah, God’s champion sent to save Israel, would reveal himself above all by three main miracles: healing a blind man, healing a leper, and healing someone who was deaf and dumb. Now I ask you, as you read the gospels, do we see Jesus doing these kinds of things? Of course we do! And not just once or occasionally. He does them over and over and over again.
What is the source of his power? It is the Holy Spirit. St Peter says in the Acts of the Apostles that “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, and he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him” (Acts 10: 38). You see, we think it was because Jesus is the Son of God that he was able to do all these wonderful miracles, but that is just a cop out for us to try to explain why we aren’t doing such things, because we are not the Son of God. But guess what? Jesus promised that those who believed in him “would do the same works that I do, and, in fact, will do greater works than these” (John 14: 12 – look it up if you don’t believe me). And how is that possible for us? Because we have received the same Spirit of God as Jesus did, in the same way as Jesus received it, through baptism. So why aren’t each one of us who have been not only baptized, but confirmed, doing this stuff? Because we have not fully allowed the Spirit of the sacraments to be unleashed in our lives. And so how do we go about unleashing the Spirit fully in our lives? Da-da drum roll: through attending the Life in the Spirit Seminars this Fall! Get it? Well, you will, if you come along. Don’t just take my word for it – read what Pope Francis has to say about the seminars in our bulletin today and believe him, if you don’t believe me!