This Sunday is the octave day of Easter Sunday, and just as a musical octave at its end pitches the same note higher, the Resurrection of our Lord raises in pitch on the eighth day in a way, to the flourishing of the Church. For the grand theme of all our readings this weekend is the rapid growth and progress of the Church in the wake of the Passion and the Resurrection of the Lord – that one event that rocked Jerusalem and opened the floodgates of God’s blessings upon all the men and women who flocked to the Holy City in spirit, to the threshold and gates of the Successor of David, Son of Man and Son of God, now gloriously risen from the dead. Let’s have the prophet Isaiah introduce this nicely…
“In later days, the mountain where the Lord dwells will be lifted high above the mountain-tops, looking down over the hills, and all nations will flock there together. A multitude of peoples will make their way to it, crying, ‘Come, let us climb up to the Lord’s mountain-peak, to the house where the God of Jacob dwells; He shall teach us the right way, we will walk in the paths He has chosen.’ The Lord’s commands shall go out from Sion, His word from Jerusalem, and He will sit in judgement on the nations, giving His award to a multitude of peoples. They will melt down their swords into plough-shares, their spears into pruning-hooks, nation levying war against nation and training itself for battle no longer.”
Prophecy of Isaias, 2: 2-4 [link]
In our gospel reading from S. John, we find the Christ crossing boundaries in an extraordinary manner, walking carefree into sealed rooms. Already at the foot of the Cross, S. John had noted with horror the opening of Christ’s side with a spear, and the bursting forth of the Sacraments of Baptism and the Holy Eucharist in the water and blood. Now, he notes on the evening of Easter Sunday with astonishment the birth of the Sacrament of Confession and Reconciliation, as the risen Christ gives authority to His Apostles to forgive sins in His name, a gift they would hand down to their successors, the priests of the Church.
“And now it was evening on the same day, the first day of the week; for fear of the Jews, the disciples had locked the doors of the room in which they had assembled; and Jesus came, and stood there in their midst; ‘Peace be upon you,’ He said. And with that, He shewed them His hands and His side. Thus the disciples saw the Lord, and were glad. Once more Jesus said to them, ‘Peace be upon you; I came upon an errand from My Father, and now I am sending you out in My turn.’ With that, He breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit; when you forgive men’s sins, they are forgiven, when you hold them bound, they are held bound.'”
Gospel of S. John, 20: 19-23 [link]
The blessing of the Sacraments of the Church is given to those who believe in Christ and trust in His promises. As He Himself says at the end of the reading, visiting on the octave day, the gift of faith extends down the generations, and we have dear S. Thomas to thank for that. You believe because you can see and hear, says the Holy One to Thomas, but blessed are they who cannot see and hear and yet believe. It is the very scientistic doubting of the Apostles that confirms us in our faith in the reality of the Resurrection.
“So, eight days afterwards, once more the disciples were within, and Thomas was with them; and the doors were locked. Jesus came and stood there in their midst; ‘Peace be upon you,’ He said. Then He said to Thomas, ‘Let Me have thy finger; see, here are My hands. Let me have thy hand; put it into My side. Cease thy doubting, and believe.’ Thomas answered, ‘Thou art my Lord and my God.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Thou hast learned to believe, Thomas, because thou hast seen Me. Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have learned to believe.'”
Gospel of S. John, 20: 26-29 [link]
He is talking about you and me, and it is our faith and the faith of our parents and godparents that brought us baptism, and every other Sacrament. And from these streams of grace, as S. John says in the second reading – from these Sacraments is the Church built.
“Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is a child of God, and to love the parent is to love his child. If we love God, and keep His commandments, we can be sure of loving God’s children. Loving God means keeping His commandments, and these commandments of His are not a burden to us. Whatever takes its origin from God must needs triumph over the world; our faith, that is the triumphant principle which triumphs over the world. He alone triumphs over the world, who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.”
First letter of the Apostle S. John, 5: 1-5 [link]
Through baptism, we are adopted sons and daughters of the Holy One and begotten by Him. Begotten of Him, we should love Him and demonstrate that love by following His commandments, as handed down to us in every generation by the teaching authority of His Church. By this love we have for the Holy One, we shall conquer and overcome the spirit of this world – this world of domination and possession and desire and power. Christ upon His cross renounced all of these things, seeking instead humility and abnegation and the Will of God. Having thus overcome the world, His name is magnified over every other name, and He extends this reward to us also – this ability to overcome and to live the freedom of the children of God, no longer enslaved by attachment to the things of this world. And we see this freedom of the children of God described powerfully by S. Luke in his Acts of the Apostles, which provides our first reading today.
“There was one heart and soul in all the company of believers; none of them called any of his possessions his own, everything was shared in common. Great was the power with which the Apostles testified to the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and great was the grace that rested on them all. None of them was destitute; all those who owned farms or houses used to sell them, and bring the price of what they had sold to lay it at the Apostles’ feet, so that each could have what share of it he needed.”
The Acts of the Apostles, 4: 32-35 [link]
The first Christians were able to give up most things also to live united in mind and heart, holding all things in common, their priests and teachers still being the Apostles of Christ, highly respected by the Church. They supplied each others wants, the goods of the community administered by the priests (and eventually by the new order of deacons).
Is this an ideal of Christian living? It most certainly is. Granted, we don’t generally live this ideal today, for we are (in the words of Christ) living in the world, if not belonging to the world, and historically this made the communal living model impractical almost immediately in every early Christian community. But we have many Religious communities established as soon as this became possible and which still exist today in one form or another – such as the Benedictines of the West and the Basilian monks of the East – that replicate to a great extent the communal living of the earliest community in Judaea. Nevertheless, we shall emulate these early Christians in so far as we can, within our families, and within the family of the Church.
Let us establish the formula again, (i) from the first reading: humility, brotherly charity, respect for the hierarchical priesthood; (ii) from the second reading: seeking after faith and understanding; and (iii) from the gospel reading: desiring forgiveness and the holiness only Christ can bring us.
Catholic Louth and Mablethorpe 