To Lay Siege the World

Like wall crucifixes that make Jesus look like He's only having a bad day, the word "Gospel" has been sanitized and turned into a "religious ornament."  Let's make it offensive again.

St Mark's gospel begins like this:

The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God (Mk 1:1).

Now that is offensive, at least it would've been to the Emperor Nero.

In the first place, many scholars  think that Mark was written in Rome on account of its emphasis on St Peter's preaching (who ended his days at Rome), the many Latinisms in the text, and the witness of the earliest Fathers.  My friend, Prof Dr Daniel B. Wallace, gives a good summary, if you'd like more information.

The clause, "the Son of God" title given to Jesus Christ was a slap on the face to the emperors of Rome who imagined themselves to be divi filius, "son of a god."  Writing under the nose of Nero Caesar, St Mark is effectively denying the divine status of the Imperator.

Adding insult to injury, St Mark also assigns "Gospel" to Jesus Christ--not merely "good news" to send us on our merry way, but precisely to let the air out of Nero's balloon, because the Latin word evangelium (and its Greek equivalent, εὐαγγέλιον) originally referred to that specific "good news" about the accession of a new Roman emperor or about Roman victory at war.  The incipit of Mark's gospel (lowercase gospel refers to the text of one of the four Evangelists; uppercase Gospel refers to...well, hang on) was calculated to theologically unseat Nero and to declare (as he does at the very end of his gospel) that Jesus Christ is enthroned and, therefore, is in control.

That is the "good news," the Gospel:  That Jesus Christ has conquered, that He is seated victoriously at the Father's right hand, and that He reigns.  Similarly, at the end of St Matthew's gospel, the Risen Lord said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me" (Mt 28:18).  Hence in the Septuagint version of Psalm 110 (109):1 foretold, "The Lord said unto my Lord:  Sit Thou at My right hand, until I make Thine enemies the footstool of Thy feet."  About this, the Old Testament prophet St Daniel saw

in the night visions, / and behold, with the clouds of heaven / there came one like a Son of Man, / and He came to the Ancient of Days / and was presented before him. / And to Him was given dominion and glory and kingdom / that all peoples should serve Him; / His dominion is an everlasting dominion, / which shall not pass away (Daniel 7:13-14).

I remember, back when I began to study New Testament Greek at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, our professor gave us a classic 'Christmas story' out of one of the gospels (without telling us) to translate; I was roundly surprised at how "imperial" the language was in describing the authority of Jesus.  (Which gospel text was it, you ask?  It's too good to leave in a blog online, so when I speak in person about the Gospel, I'll tell that story in full!)

In the previous post, I spoke at length about the Lordship of Jesus.  It is in this context that the Gospel must be understood:  The Good News is that Jesus is Lord--not only has He conquered sin, death, hell, and the Enemy, but He has also conquered the world.

Remember what I also said in the previous post about the meaning of "preaching"--that it was a heralding of the Lordship of Jesus?

The preaching (κηρύσσων) of the Gospel, therefore, is to lay siege to the world with the love of God and to win people from "every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues" (Apoc 7:9) for Our Lord Jesus Christ.  The extent of Jesus' Lordship is absolute--which is why we speak of "the Kingdom" and, more precisely, the "Gospel of the Kingdom" (cf Mt 4:23, 9:35; Mk 1:14).  The task of preaching is simply to invite people to join themselves to Him.

But, what has this got to do with salvation?

Again, this is another slap across Nero's face.  The Roman emperors imagined themselves to be salvator mundi--"saviour of the world."  John 4:42 was also calculated to show that Jesus is the "saviour of the world," not Augustus.  Whereas the Roman emperor sought to be the "saviour" of the Roman peoples by crediting himself with the success of Rome's infrastructure and the security of its citizens, Jesus offers a salvation that is far more wholistic, one that heals (salvator is related to salve, "health") us right at the heart--sin; the Lord Jesus repairs the world's ills by first repairing human brokenness resulting from our separation from God.  With hearts healed, we can set out to put wrongs to right.

This is exactly why the ambition of social activism under the banner of "Christianity" is inimical to the Gospel--because it bypasses the source of all societal ills, My sins and your sins, and it aims to create a just society based on man's wants instead of Jesus' rights as Lord.

When we speak of the "New Evangelisation," we must first understand evangelisation in the original sense of the term:  To lay siege to the world with Jesus' lordly love by winning souls for Him.  It is "new" because, as Christians, we have permitted Christendom to collapse by aligning ourselves with worldly values; we thus seek to recover for Jesus Christ what we have cost Him.

As I watch to many Christians wring their hands at the Church's state of affairs in a secular society and listen to them talk about the need to cope and compromise in the name of laïcité, I think of St Paul, who rigged the Roman legal system (Acts 25:11-12) in order to pursue the Lord Jesus' summons for him to preach the Gospel in Rome (Acts 23:11) until, finally he arrived at the Capital of the Empire,

preaching the Kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus quite openly and unhindered (Acts 28:31).

But, then again, as he said in 2 Corinthians 4:13,

Since we have the same Spirit of faith as he had who wrote, "I believed, and so I spoke," we too believe, and so we speak...

If we remain silent about Jesus' reign, if we keep the Gospel to ourselves, if we aim to make Christianity more "relevant" to a world desperate for mercy and grace, we must honestly ask whether we really believe.  Actions speaks louder than words, and to evangelise is to act on the reality that JESUS IS LORD.

Pentecost and Mission

At the Abbaye Sainte-Marie-Madeleine de Vézelay, there is a powerful tympanum over the main doors leading out of the vestibule and into the narthex of the Church, depicting a kind of mash-up of the Ascension of Christ and Pentecost.  Instead of tongues of fire, rays of light emanate from the hands of the Lord Jesus and onto each of the Twelve Apostles, thus illuminating them.  The Apostles are so postured to show their readiness to spring into action, each of them holding a book representing the Gospel to be proclaimed.  Below the Apostles are a row of grotesquely-formed people representing the unevangelized, grotesque because they are bereft of grace.

I cannot help but wonder if those mesmerizing swirls on the garment of the Lord Jesus are supposed evoke the "mighty wind"--the Ruach ha-kodesh that swept throughout the house and the Upper Room on the morning of Pentecost (cf Acts 2:2).

If the previous several posts are any indication, the mediaevals liked to depict the Ascension and Pentecost together; the tympanum at Vézelay combines the two events into one, as I said, in a mash-up.  St Mark's gospel, for example, gives such an impression:

So then the Lord Jesus, after He had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God.  And they went forth and preached [ἐκήρυξαν] everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that attended it.  Amen (Mk 16:19-20).

Keep your eye on that verb for "preached"--ἐκήρυξαν--we're going to come back to that.  What's curious here is that the Lord Jesus is both seated "at the right hand of God" and "worked with them" as if He was two places at once.  But was He?

The Ascension of Jesus meant that He became more present to the Church, not distant from it, which is why the Apostles "returned to Jerusalem with great joy" in St Luke's account (24:52).  Who rejoices when a loved one departs?  No one--here, though Jesus went up, He most certainly did not go away.  More than that, since the Holy Spirit is also "the Spirit of Christ" (Rom 8:9) and the "Spirit of his Son" (Gal 4:6)--not that the two Persons are conflated but that they are related--the Holy Spirit (if I may be so crude) "immanentizes" Christ to His believers.  It is for this reason that the rays of light emanate from the fingers of Jesus (perhaps an allusion to the tradition that describes the Holy Spirit as "the finger of God"?) and touch upon the head of the Apostles like the tongues of file in Acts 2:3.  The tympanum, with its almost ridiculously-oversized Christ does indeed show the immanence of Jesus--perhaps, even an almost menacing presence--in the apostolic Mission.  If this be the case, then, clearly the tympanum shows a connexion between the Ascension, Pentecost, and Mission.

Immediately prior to His Ascension, the Apostles asked Jesus a question, and He gives what appears to be an evasive answer:  "Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" (Acts 1:6).  They were still too thick to understand that Jesus' kingdom was not an earthly kingdom (Jn 18:36) and the reasons why He refused an earthly throne (cf Jn 6:15).  In reply, Jesus essentially says, "How and when--mind your own business."  It's the very next verse that ought to catch our attention:

But [ἀλλὰ] you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses...to the end of the earth (Acts 1:8).

 "But" is a conjunction--it 'conjoins' two different ideas but on a slightly different note.  "I don't want to eat a candy-bar, but I am hungry" means I'm conjoining my reluctance to eat something unhealthy while needing something to eat just the same.  So when Jesus says to Peter, "But..." He means to say, "Same destination, different course!"

Same destination, different course.  What's the destination?  The fullness of the Kingdom ("restore the kingdom to Israel").  What's the course?  Pentecostal power for witness ("power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses").

Witness what?  On the basis of Acts 2:36, 10:36, Romans 14:7-9, we give witness to the Lordship of Jesus. The Ascension of Jesus Christ--with His enthronement at the Father's right hand--is precisely the "iconography" of the Lordship of Jesus; from the Father's right hand Jesus sends forth the Holy Spirit so that the Church may both be born and be fueled for Mission.  This is exactly at the heart of St Paul's words, "No-one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit" (Rom 10:9)--not merely by an utterance but by a heralding.

Let's go back to that Greek verb in Mark 16:20, ἐκήρυξαν, "preached."  which is the aorist tense for κηρύσσω, 'I herald, I proclaim.'

Nothing bores me into a coma more than conflating "preaching" with "homiletics"--they are not the same thing.  To preach--κηρύσσειν in the infinitive mood--originally meant to proclaim or to herald the imminent arrival of a monarch.  In antiquity, before a king was to make a royal visit to a city, a "preacher" (κήρυκα) would go ahead of the visiting monarch and warn the citizen-subjects that their monarch was about to arrive.

A Christian preacher does just this, except he or she does not herald the imminent arrival of a king, but the current Lordship of Jesus.  Jesus "preached" in the original sense of the word (cf Mt  4:17; Mk 1:14); with His glorification at His Resurrection (whereby He conquered sin, death, hell, and Satan) and at His Ascension to the Father's right hand, "He has put all things under His feet" (Eph 1:22), the task of "preaching" shifted from "the Kingdom is coming" to "the Kingdom is now--whose side are you on?"

At the jubilee of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal in 2017, on the platform at Circus Maximus, there was a huge mural with JESUS IS LORD printed in the languages of the world.  This is at the heart of the Gospel preaching--to declare the Lordship of Jesus:

...the same Lord is Lord of all and bestows His riches upon all who call upon Him.  For, "every one who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved."

But how are [people] to call upon Him in whom they have not believed?  And how are they to believe in Him of whom they have never heard?  And how are they to hear without a preacher [κηρύσσοντος]?  And how can [they] preach [κηρύξωσιν] unless they are sent?  As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach [εὐαγγελιζομένων:  literally, "evangelise"] Good News!"  But they have not all heeded the Gospel; for Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed what he has heard form us?"  So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes by the preaching of Christ [ῥήματος  Χριστοῦ:  literally, "utterance about Christ"] (Rom 10:12-17).

Clearly, St Paul intersects "preaching" and the "Lordship of Jesus." Clearly, too, St Paul understands that the declarative utterance (ὁμολογήσῃς...ἐν τῷ στόματί, in the same sense as "utterance about Christ in Rom 10:7) that "Jesus is Lord" can only be done Pentecostally, that is, in the power of the Holy Spirit who, when imbuing us, imbues us precisely for Mission.

This is precisely what the tympanum at Vézelay intends to tell us:  The Apostles, baptised in the Holy Spirit, are dispatched for Mission to declare to the peoples of the world that "Jesus is Lord"--symbolized by the immense statue of the enthroned Lord who outpours the Gift of the Holy Spirit.

Today's Church seems to be languishing in her Mission, despite the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council's renewed summons to proclaim the Gospel in its decree ad Gentes, despite Pope Paul VI's Evangelii nuntiandi, despite Pope John Paul II's Redemptoris missio, despite Pope Francis' Evangelii gaudium.

Despite Vatican II and the magisterium of the recent popes, there is a definite missionary laziness in the Church, and here's why:  Many have substituted ideological verbiage in place of preaching, social activism for Mission, and human prowess for the Holy Spirit.  Resolving the world's miserable lot--whether it be poverty, starvation, war, oppression, or every existential crisis--can only be done successfully when we are on the side of the Lord Jesus, and only be done successfully when we are "clothed with power from on high" (Lk 24:49).  As St Paul wrote--

When I came to you, brethren, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God in lofty words or wisdom.  For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.  And  I was with you in weakness and in much fear and trembling; and my speech and my message [κήρυγμά] were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God (1 Cor 2:1-5).

Billy Joel naïvely sang, "We didn't start the fire!"

Oh, yes, we did.

But we can only fight fire with Fire--with the Fire of the Holy Spirit, preaching the Gospel of the Lordship of Jesus Christ and bringing the world into sweet submission to Him.

JESUS IS LORD!

The Power of Pentecost, 1

St Peter the Apostle on Pentecost morning, preaching the first sermon.

Just before the prophecy delivered by St John the Baptist about the One who would "baptise you with the Holy Spirit and with fire" (Mt 3:11), this 'last Old Testament prophet' warned his hearers to not

...presume to say to yourselves, "We have Abraham as our father"; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham!

Most people, it seems to me, think that the Forerunner is slighting the smug, self-satisfied religious folks' ancestral purity when, in fact, he was highlighting God's power to produce offspring to Abraham apart from pedigree.  This was St Paul's exact point in several of his letters:

And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise (Gal 3:29).

For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his descendants...  This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise (Rom 8:7-10).

This "promise," of course, refers to the Promise of Worldwide Blessing which God gave to Abraham in Genesis 22:15-18.  The question, then, becomes:  How does one become heirs to this "promise"?  How can an ethnic non-Abrahamite become his offspring and, more importantly, his heir?

The answer begins in Acts 10, when St Peter the Apostle receives two prophetic words:  First, the vision of a diversity of non-kosher, "unclean" animals to eat and, second, the request to visit the house of Cornelius, where he comes to understand the meaning of the vision.  Cornelius was a member of the Italian cohort (Acts 10:1) and a Gentile who invited Peter to visit with him, his family, and close acquaintances. It is there that Peter begins to understand the vision, that "What God has cleansed, you must not call common" (Acts 10:15; cf vv. 28-29).

Then "Peter opened his mouth" and preached

Good News of peace by Jesus Christ--He is Lord of all--the word which was proclaimed throughout all Judea beginning from Galilee after the baptism which John preached:  How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power... (Acts 10:36f)

The final piece of the puzzle was yet to come:  "While Peter was still saying this, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word...

And the believers from among the circumcised who came with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles.  For they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling God.  Then Peter declared, "Can any one forbid water for baptising these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?"  And he commanded them to be baptised in the Name of Jesus Christ (Acts 10:44--48).

 And--BOOM--the "power" to raise up children to Abraham was precisely that "power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you" (Acts 1:8; cf Lk 24:49).  It is the same power which St John the Apostle and Evangelist wrote in his Prologue--

But to all who received Him, who believed in His Name, he gave power to become children of God; who were born, not of blood nor of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God (Jn 1:13).

This is precisely the overarching narrative of the post-Pentecost Christian community:  The indwelling Holy Spirit--not Abrahamic ancestral pedigree--makes us his heirs.  The 'Jerusalem Conference' in Acts 15:1-35 met to discuss the very question of whether the Gentiles could also become Christians because it was only since Cornelius' baptism in the Holy Spirit that non-Jews could became members of Christ's Body:

And God who knows the heart bore witness to them [= the Gentiles], giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us; and he made no distinction between us [= Jews] and them [= Gentiles], but cleansed their hearts by faith...  But we believe that we shall be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will (Acts 15:8-9, 11).

This was St Paul's 'sticking point'--that the indwelling Holy Spirit is precisely what gives us the "pedigree" to be counted as Abraham's offspring.  In fact, Paul plays with the idea of the Gentiles being a wild olive branch grafted onto the domesticated olive tree of Israel, implying the olive oil in the fruit olive which is suggestive of the anointing of the Holy Spirit (Rom 11:17f).  He makes a similar point in his epistle to the Galatian churches--

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  And if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise... (Gal 3:29-29).

In the very next paragraph, Paul bats a home-run:

I mean that an heir, as long as he is a child, is no better than a slave...  But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of a Woman, born under the Law, to redeem those who were under the Law, so that we might receive adoption as sons [and daughters].  And because you are sons [and daughters], God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba!  Father!" (Gal 4:1, 4-6).

It is the Holy Spirit who indwells us who is the great gatherer of the Gentiles to form the one Body of Christ (Rom 12:4; 1 Cor 12:13; Gal 3:26-29).

But why am I belaboring what ought to be Biblically obvious?  Because the indwelling Holy Spirit is the only solution to the sin of racism.  Sin, by definition is divisive; that is why Adam and Eve hid from both each other and from God (Gen 3:7, 8).  Paul tells us that division, party spirit, and the like are "works of the flesh" (Gal 5:19-20).  It is only in the power of Pentecost that there can be true "unity in diversity."

This is the Gospel that is left unannounced by many leaders in the Christian community.  As the Body of Christ, our solution to the problem of racism is not the world's; our solution is a supernatural one; it is to the enlarge the Body of Christ by inviting all peoples to receive the Gift of the Holy Spirit, the same Spirit of love between the Father and Son, the Spirit whom Jesus promised in John 17:20-26  who would be the source of unity.

For Christians to adopt worldlings' "solution" to the problem of racism instead of the Gospel's is like trying to light up a room with a battery-operated flashlight instead of turning on the light-switch.  Why would Christians opt for a powerless solution to the brokenness and fragmentation of the human race resulting from preternatural sin when the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit is given to us precisely to unite us all?  As St Peter said on the morning of that first Pentecost, "For the promise is for you"--remember the vast assembly of races assembled at Jerusalem for the Feast of Weeks--"and for your children and to all that are far off, every one whom the Lord our God calls to him" (Acts 2:39).

The Lord Jesus explicitly connected the Outpouring with Mission:

But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth (Acts 1:8).

When we stand before the Judgment-Seat of Christ, what answer will we give to Him, while bragging about our anti-racism, when He asks us, "But why did you refuse the power of Pentecost?  Why did you not invite Blacks, First Nations, Arabs, and Amazonians to experience baptism in the Holy Spirit and to become members of My Body?  That, and that alone, was My appointed ending to the confusion of Babel."

     Almighty and ever-living God,
     who willed the Paschal Mystery
     to be encompassed as a sign of fifty days,
     grant that from out of the scattered nations
     that the confusion of tongues
     may be gathered by heavenly grace
     into the one great confession of Your Name.
     Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
     who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
     one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

          --Solemn Vigil of Pentecost, Collect before the Epistle

From Ascensiontide to Pentecost, 3

The whole of theology is about "connecting the dots" throughout Sacred Scripture; we have been doing exactly that in this series on Ascension and Pentecost.  In this post, let's start with Acts 1:8 and try to do some serious dot-connecting:

But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and [καὶ] you shall be My witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.

The Lord Jesus is making a connexion between the Outpouring and witness:  "...when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses..."  The Greek conjunction here--καὶ--meaning 'and,' 'even,' 'also' brings together two different ideas to form a composite; in this case, the composite is "Holy Spirit" and "witness."

The modality of the Apostolic witness post-Pentecost is decidedly different than it was pre-Pentecost; the "witness" of Sts James and John to call down lightning upon the unbelievers (Lk 9:54) or the "witness" of St Peter slicing off Malchus' ear (Jn 18:10) was not of the same supernatural quality as the Apostolic preaching on the morning of Pentecost.

But it is facile to say that the Holy Spirit empowered the infant Church for mission.  While that's certainly true, it underestimates the kick-in-the-stomach quality of what is really going on:  Preaching the Gospel of Jesus' Lordship.  Notice the "apocalyptic" tone of the Apostolic preaching that stresses the authority of Jesus Christ:

Let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly that God has made Him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified (Acts 2:36);

You know the word which he sent ot the sons of Israel, preaching Good News of peace by Jesus Christ--He is Lord of all... (Acts 10:36); 

And He commanded us to preach to the people, and to testify that He is the One ordained by God to be judge of the living and the dead (Acts10:42);

 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men to repent, becuase he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a Man whom he has appointed... (Acts 10:31).

Later, St Paul would say:

For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord... (2 Cor 4:5).

It was not only by the power of the Holy Spirit that the Apostles preached the Lordship of Jesus; it was, more precisely, after the enthronement of Jesus at the Father's right hand and then imbued with His power outpoured that the Apostles preached this Good News.

"Preached this Good News," indeed.  The Greek word for "preach" and for "Gospel" are not religious words--they are political words.   "Preach"--κηρύσσω--refers to the heralding on behalf of a king or an emperor and only later took on the distinctive Christian meaning we know now.  To "preach" is not simply to give a homily or to sermonize, but to declare something on behalf of a reigning monarch.  For Christians to preach, then, is to declare tidings on behalf of the risen, exalted, glorified Lord who has ascended into heaven and is enthroned at the Father's right hand.  To preach is to declare not merely a new political order but a renewed cosmic order where the Lordship of Jesus is universal, absolute, and inescapable.

"Good News" or "Gospel" is likewise a political word.  The accession of a new Roman Emperor or a Roman victory in war was called εὐαγγέλιον, 'gladsome tidings.'  Christians co-opted this word to describe the real "good news," namely that God is in control through the risen, exalted, and glorified Lord Jesus.  This is precisely why Mark's gospel begins the way it does:  Recall that it was compsed at Rome, the seat of the Roman Emperor:  "The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God" (Mk 1:1).  This verse was a slap across the face of Caligula, Claudius, and Nero, as if to say:  "Caesar does not bring good news, but Christ does!"  Not only that, but Augustus had declared the Roman Emperor to be divi filius, "divine son"; do you see how St Mark addded insult to injury by declaring that not only did Christ bring Good New, but also that Christ, not Caesar, is the "Son of God"?

To preach the Gospel is to upset the worldly order by declaring the glad tidings of Jesus' Lordship; the ministry of evangelisation, then, is to "save" people from the ultimate Judgment by inviting them to submit themselves to the authority of Jesus Christ.  This is exactly what St Peter meant when he quoted the prophet Joel, "And it shall be that whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved" (Acts 2:21).

What we read in Acts is, of course, not verbatim; moreover, St Luke expects us to 'fill in the blanks,' as it were, and the rest of the passage from Joel (which is read at the Solemn Vigil of Pentecost) makes this abundantly clear.  Recall what I said in the previous post about Mount Zion being the place from where the king reigns--

And it shall come to pass that all who cal upon the name of the Lord shall be delivered; for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the LORD has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the LORD calls (Joel 2:32).

 The Upper Room--where the Holy Spirit was first outpoured--was (and is) on Mount Zion, and it was precisely from Mount Zion that the Apostles preached the Gospel of the King and His Kingdom (cf Psalm 110; Isaiah 2).

Returning to where we began, Acts 1:8 connects mission to the Ascension and Pentecost; the longer ending of Mark does, too:

Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to the whole creation...  So then the Lord Jesus, after He had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God (16:15, 19).

But where Jesus reiterated the Great Commission (please--Mt 28:16-20 and Mk 16:14-20 are two different events!) and where He ascended to the Father is also richly revealing:  It took place on the Mount of Olives (Acts 1:12; cf Lk 24:50), which is on the eastern side of the Valley of Jehosophat, with Jerusalem to the west.  Why here?

Recall the "Olivet Discourse" of Jesus (Mt 24:3ff) where He spoke, among others, of the End of All Things.  Again, why here?  Because it stands beside the Valley of Jehosophat, where both the prophet Joel and where theologians say the Last Judgment will take place (Joel 3:2, 12, 14).  By gathering at the Mount of Olives, Jesus is making at least two points:  First, to command the Apostles to preach the mercy of the Just Judge right beside where the Last Judgment will some day take place, and by ascending to the Father's right side, to make the point that Jesus is precisely the Father's own Mercy that is being preached.  More on that in the next post.

This, then, ought to give us a renewed understanding of Romans 10:9, "...if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved."  This is not a matter of merely personal belief because, as Paul said:

Since we have the same spirit of faith as he who wrote, "I believed, and so I spoke," we too believe, and so we speak, knowing that he who rasied the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into His Presence (2 Cor 4:13-14).

It is not simply "saying" by the Holy Spirit that we say "Jesus is Lord" (1 Cor 12:3); it is rather "speaking out loud" (λαλῶν) and "publicly declaring" (ὁμολογήσῃς) the Lordship of Jesus by way of witness that we fulfill the Church's missionary mandate.

And we should think of "mission" in political terms, too:  The Church is the diplomatic mission of the Lord Jesus Christ to the world, declaring His gift of grace, mercy, and salvation.

From Ascensiontide to Pentecost, 2

In the previous post, we looked at what St Luke was getting at in telling Theophilus that his earlier gospel was only about "what Jesus began to do and teach" (Acts 1:1) and that the life of Jesus continues in His anointed disciples.

That was the subtle answer to St Luke's literary teaser.

There is, in fact, another answer, one that is somewhat less subtle:  Jesus continues to "do and teach" by way of His Lordship.

More to the point, Jesus exercises His Lordship by way of His Sevenfold Gift (Is 11:2-3, LXX).

St Matthew the Evangelist, in a act of literary deftness, condenses the entire Paschal Mystery into his succint 28th chapter, ending at Galilee (instead of the Mount of Olives, where the Ascension took place).  The condensing of Easter's glory is found in Jesus' words, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me" (Mt 28:18).  This much is conveyed in the very Ascension itself, whereby Jesus took His throne beside the Father's--and where there is a throne, there is always authority.

The image at the top of this post--like yesterday's--shows the Ascension in the top panel and Pentecost in the lower panel, thus showing the connexion between Christ's authority and wielding that authority by the Holy Spirit.  This is the full sense of that passage in the Apocalypse, where the Seer of Patmos had a vision of the Holy Trinity:

...from him who is and who was and who is to come [= God the Father], and from the Seven Spirits who are before his throne [= God the Holy Spirit] , and from Jesus Christ, the Faithful Witness, the first-born of the dead, and ruler of kings on earth [= God the Son] (Apoc 1:4-5).

 The "Seven Spirit who are before his throne" makes an obvious connexion between the "Seven Spirits" described in the Greek version of Isaiah 11:2-3 and God's authority symbolized by the throne.

Further, in Apocalypse 4:5, a further connexion is made to the Menorah that once graced the Holy of Holies in the Jerusalem temple:

From the throne issue flashes of lightning, and voices and peals of thunder, and before the throne burn seven torches of fire, which are the Seven Spirits of God.

In the Old Testament, the Holy of Holies was a mirror of the heavenly sanctuary (Heb 8:5).  As for the Menorah, the Greek text of Isaiah makes it clear what the Seer of Patmos is alluding to:

 And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him:  the spirit of wisdom, and of understanding, the spirit of counsel, and of fortitude, the spirit of knowledge, and of godliness.  And He shall be filled with the spirit of the fear of the Lord (Is 11:2-3).

 In verse four, Isaiah makes it clear that this Sevenfold Gift, or the "Seven Spirits" is precisely how the future Anointed One--Christ--will exercise His judiciary power:

He shall not judge according to the sight of the eyes, nor reprove according to the hearing of the ears.  But He shall judge the poor with justice, and shall reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and He shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips He shall slay the wicked.  And justice shall be the girdle of His loins: and faith the girdle of His reins (Is 11:3-6).

So Jesus exercises His Lordly authority by way of the Holy Spirit.  He said as much the night before He died:

...for if I do not go away, the Counsellor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.  And when he comes, he will convince the world of sin and of righteouness and of judgment:  of sin, because they do not believe in Me; of righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no more; of judgment becuase the ruler of this world is judged (Jn 16:7-11).

The Holy Spirit, then is how Jesus goes about His dominion--to convict the world of unbelief, to demonstrate His obedience to the Father by returning to Him by way of the Ascension, and to judge Satan.  Again, this is why the Seer of Patmos puts the "Seven Spirits" and the "throne" together.

That was the language of St John the Evangelist; St Paul the Apostle makes the same point but with a different set of vocabulary:

None of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself.  If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's.  For to this end Christ died and lived again, that He might be Lord both of the dead and of the living (Rom 10:7-9).

In other words, the Paschal Mystery--the Resurrection, Ascension, and Pentecost--inaugurated Jesus' Lordship.  We will have something to say about a more explicit connexion between Jesus' Lordship and the very day of Pentecost in the next post.

Going back to what St John wrote (Jn 16:7-11), we see that the Holy Spirit extends Jesus' Lordship to thre different spheres:  unbelievers, believers, and apostate Lucifer.  Jesus wields His Lordship such that the world is given notice that everyone stands in need of grace ("because they do not believe in Me"); He wields His Lordship over Chrisians by the Holy Spirit directing their belief in Him whose earthly life culminated in the Ascension ("I go to the Father"); finally, the Anointed One wields His Lordship by the Holy Spirit by passing a sentence of eternal condemnation against Satan ("the ruler of this world is judged").

No-one escapes Jesus' Lordship; the only ones who are "marked safe" are those who are saved:

Any one who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him (Rom 8:9).

In the next post, we will visit, in a more exact way, just how the Holy Spirit governs Christians.  The answer is hidden in the conjunction "but" right in the middle of Acts 1:6-8 and on the very day of Pentecost in Acts 2:1.

From Ascensiontide to Pentecost, 1

In the classical Roman Rite, the liturgy lingers on one small, short passage from the Acts of the Apostles--

In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when He was taken up, after He had given commandment through the Holy Spirit to the Apostles whom He had chosen (Acts 1:1-2).

Do you see something curious about what St Luke the Evangelist said?  "[A]ll that Jesus began to do and teach..."  Began!  The entire "first book"--the Gospel According to Luke--was simply about what "...all Jesus began to do and  teach..."  Think about it:  The story of Jesus, from the Incarnation (Lk 1:26-38) up to and including His Ascension (Lk 24:50-51) that St Luke records in his "first book" was only a beginning.

If St Luke's gospel was only a 'beginning,' where's the rest of the story?

St Mark the Evangelist does something similar in his gospel:  "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God" (Mk 1:1).  Again, Mark's "beginning" spans the baptism of Jesus (Mk 1:9-1) all the way to His Ascension in the longer, canonical ending (Mk 16:19).

Again, if St Mark's gospel was only a 'beginning,' where's the rest of the story?

In a word:  "Christ" is the beginning of Jesus' story.  "Christians" are the continuation of that same story of Jesus Christ.

The longer ending of the Gospel According to Mark concludes thus:

And they whent forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signes that attended it.  Amen (Mk 16:20).

The "two men" who were dressed "in white robes" essentially tell the Apostles to quit lollygagging and get busy--

Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven?  This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in teh same way as you saw Him go into heaven" (Acts 1:11).

In a forthcoming post, I will talk about the relationship between the Ascension of the Lord and His Return.  For now, we need to explore what St Luke meant by telling this "Theophilus" that the prequel to his Acts of the Apostles was only about what Jesus "began to do and teach."

What happened between Ascension and Pentecost?  Jesus took His seat at the Father's right hand--which is to say He took up His rightful throne to rule, to inaugurate His Lordship.  I do not mean that Jesus was without authority previously; I mean that His Lordship took upon itself a new modality, thanks to Pentecost.  St Paul makes a clear connexion between the Paschal Mystery and the Lordship of Jesus:

None of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself.  I fwe live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's.  For to this end Christ died and lived again, that He might be Lord both of the dead and of the living (Rom 14:7-9). 

Mind you, St Paul was writing to a Roman audience, where the Greek word for Lord, Kyrie, was a loaded one.  Whenever the Roman Emperor processed into the City with booty from war, the citizens of Rome would line up alongside the road where the Emperor was passing by and shout out, "Kyrie, eleison!  Kyrie, eleison!"

Yes, that's where we got the liturgical expression.  We'll come back to this in a moment.

Ten days after the Ascension, the very first Christian sermon was preached.  At one point, St Peter said:

Let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly that God has made Him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified!

Both of these titles have to do with the Holy Spirit.  As "Christ," Jesus was the "Anointed One," that is, chock-full of the Holy Spirit.   He was concevied by the Holy Spirit (Mt 1:18, 20; Lk 1:35); He was "driven" by the Holy Spirit to face down Satan in the wilderness (Mt 4:1; Lk 4:1; Mk 1:12); He "rejoiced in the Holy Spirit" (Lk 10:21f), and was even raised from the dead by the Holy Spirit (Rom 8:11).  In fact, the mission of Jesus was not merely about forgiveness of sins and eternal life; those were, really, part of the 'package deal' of the Gift of the Holy Spirit that Jesus promised.  Just before His baptism, St John the Forerunner promised that the Coming One--Jesus--who wil "baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire" (Lk 3:16).  They were about to get, finally, what Jesus came for.

That is why the Four Evangelists all begin with the story of St John the Forerunner--it was not only his baptizing Jesus that was important, but his prophetic word about Jesus' ministry which would be a long preparation for Pentecost.  Hence, just before His Ascension, Jesus spoke of the "promise of the Father which, He said, 'you heard from Me, for John baptized with water, but before many days you shall be baptised with the Holy Spirit'" (Acts 1:4-5)

But there is a significant information gap, and a very telling one at that.  Just prior to His Ascension, St Luke tells us, Jesus spent forty days with His disciples

...speaking of the Kingdom of God.  And while staying with them He charged them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father... (Acts 1:3-4).

One searches in vain for much reference to this "Kingdom of God" which the Risen Jesus spoke about in the Resurrection narratives.  What, exactly, did Jesus say about the Kingdom?  Where are His words?  No details are given.

Here's why:  The Gospel proclamation is precisely about the Kingdom of God (Mt 4:23; cf Mk 1:15), one that we would become members of thanks to baptism and the Holy Spirit (Jn 3:5).  What Jesus said--and was left unrecorded by the Evangelists--is precisely the content of the Gospel's preaching.

The Upper Room, where the Holy Spirit was outpoured upon the Apostles (Acts 1:13; cf 2:1), was (and is) located on Mount Sion.  This was not fortuitious.  In many places, "Mount Sion" was the place of the King of Israel:  "I have set up My King on Sion, My holy mountain" (Ps 2:6); "His holy mountain, beautiful in elevation, is the joy fo all the earth.  Mount Sion, in the far north, the city of the great King" (Ps 48:2); verses could be easily multiplied.  But the fact that the Holy Spirit was first outpoured on Mount Zion shows a connexion between the Holy Spirit and Jesus' dominion.  Hence "the Gospel of the Kingdom."

Remember what I said earlier about the Romans lining up, shouting "Kyrie, eleison" to receive from the Emperor's largesse?  That is exactly what happens between Christ and Christians:

 And from His [= Jesus'] fulness have we all recceived, grace upon grace (Jn 1:16);

...and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus (1 Tim 1:14);

...It is like the precious oil upon the head [= Christ], running down upon the beard, upon the beard of Aaron, running down thecollar of his robes!  It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls uopn the mountains of Zion!  It is there the Lord has commanded the blessing, life for evermore (Ps 133:2-3).

When Jesus was enthroned at the Father's right hand, He "received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit" and "has poured out this which you see and hear" (Acts 2:33).  Thus, like the oil flowing down from Aaron's crown, the Holy Spirit overflowed from Christ to Christians.  And having received those same Seven Gifts which Jesus was anointed with (Is 11:2-3 LXX), His disciples then take on a certain likeness to Jesus, a certain 'connaturality' with Him:  This is the source of Jesus' Lordship over Christians--Jesus is Lord over us Christians because we are conformed to Him by receiving the same Holy Spirit that He has in such a way that we "live as He lived" (1 Jn 5:6).

The mediaeval Christians got it right when they depicted the Ascension and Pentecost together (as in the image above), because the Ascension of Jesus instigated the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon His disciples, thus moving them to submit themselves to His sweet and gentle Lordship.

And that, my friends, is how we continue the story of Jesus:  The Holy Spirit overflowed from Christ to Christians, from the Head to the Body, so that your life and mine would be the many spin-offs of the Acts of the Apostles telling the story of the same Lord Jesus to the world, all in the power of Pentecost.

Be the sequel to the story of Jesus!

How to Pray to the End the Plague

Many people think God is like Santa Claus, that even if we're on the naughty list, we still owed gifts.  That image of God is idolatrous.

In this essay, I'd like to offer some Biblical reflections on praying aright, an art for which the Body of Christ seems to be experiencing something of a famine.  So, please, open your Bible and join me on a pilgrimage to the "throne of grace" (Heb 4:16).

1.  Repentance
St James wrote, "You ask and do not recevie because you ask wrongly..." (Jas 4:3); he goes on to say, "...you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions...  Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?  Therefore whoever wishes to be afriend of the owrld makes himself an enemy fo God" (Jas 4:3a-4).  The apostles St Paul (2 Cor 6:17-18) and St John (1 John 2:15) make the same point.

On the other hand, "If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.  Set your minds on the things that are above, not the things that are on earth" (Col 3:1-2).  The Word thus speaks of changing our minds away from worldliness and towards the heavenly life.  It is this 'changing of the mind' that exactly constitutes repentance.

In traditional Catholic praxis, "contrition" consists of compunction for sin, that is, sorrow for having offended God, and purpose of amendment, that is, a resolution to not recommit sin.  In fact, sacramental absolution can be invalidated by the penitnent who, in the confessional, refuses to not repeat his sin.

Traditional Catholic praxis also demands that one be in the state of grace in order to pray efficaciously, or at least intend to return to the state of grace as soon as possible.  St Louis de Montfort, in his The Secret of the Rosary (no. 117) has this to say, for example:

[...] say the holy Rosary with advantage one must be in a state of grace or at least be fully determined to give up sin, for all our theology teaches us that good works and prayers are dead works if they are done in a state of mortal sin. Therefore, they can neither be pleasing to God nor help us to gain eternal life. As Scripture says, "Praise is not seemly in the mouth of a sinner" [Sirach 15:9].

Hence St James:  "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much" (5:16, AV), and the only righteous person is a repentant person.  After all, why should we expect God to favour us with cleansing our land of the pandemic if we refuse God the favour of being converted and reformed?

2.  Pray in the Name of Jesus
In several places, the Lord Christ invites His disciples to pray "in My Name."  To pray in Jesus' Name is to pray with His own authority such that we almost speak on His behalf.  For example, the Governor-General of Canada speaks in the name of The Queen, that is, she speaks to Parliament as if Her Majesty herself was addressing them.  When we pray in the Name of Jesus, we speak to the Father with Jesus' own authority.

In His Farewell Discourse, the Lord said "Whatever you ask in My Name, I will do it, that the Father may be glorified in the Son; if you ask anything in My Name, I will do it" (Jn 14:13-14).  Again, "...I chose you and appointed you that you shoudl go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide; so that whaever you ask the Father in My Name, he may give it to you" (Jn 15:16).

Even more powerful is corporate prayer in the Name of Jesus:  "Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done fo rthem by My Father in heaven.  For where two or three are gathered in My Name, there I am in the midst of them" (Mt 18:19-20).

It is a mistake to think that praying 'in Jesus' Name' is an added luxury or simply more beneficial than other kinds of prayer; it is, in fact, the only true prayer.  The reason is that in Jesus alone is the Father accessible at all:  "I am the Way, and the  Truth, and the Life; no one comes to the Father except through Me" (Jn 14:6).  Not "principally through Me" or "usually through Me" but "except through Me."  St Paul makes a similar point:  "For there is one God, and there is one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus" (1 Tim 2:5).  There are no alternative mediators.

Clearly, to pray 'in the Name of Jesus' is to boldly access the Father on Jesus' behalf.  But how do we get to the point of being able to pray not only on behalf of Jesus, but to God as Father?

3.  Pray in the Power of the Holy Spirit
Our access to God is by way of Jesus Christ such that He lends us His own voice in addressing God as "Father."  But this can only happen if we are incorporated to Christ, and that is done precisely by the indweling Holy Spirit:  "Any one who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him" (Rom 8:9).  Thus:

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons [and daughters] of God.  For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of Sonship.  When we cry, "Abba, Father!" it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God (Rom 8:14-16).

Whereas in his Epistle to the Romans St Paul speaks of the 'Spirit of Sonship,' in his Epistle to the Galatians he speaks of the 'Spirit of Adoption':

...God sent forth his Son, born of a Woman, born under the Law, so that we might receive adoption as sons [and daughters].  And because you are sons [and daughters], God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba!  Father!"  So you are no longer a slave but a son [and a daughter] (Gal 4:4-7).

It is precisely "through Him [Christ]  we both have access in one Spirit to the Father" (Eph 2:18).  It is by baptism in the Holy Spirit that we are incporporated into Christ (1 Cor 12:13) and thus are 'extensions' of Christ; our being an extension of Christ is precisely how we pray 'in the Name of Jesus,' and only when we are empowered by surrendered to the indwelling Holy Spirit can we do this fully.

By the way, I wonder:  With the Church's missionary outreach languishing and given Christians' evangelistic lethargy in growing the Body of Christ, is it possible to fully pray "in the Name of Jesus"?  Can we dare to approach the Father while intentionally shrinking the numbers of new Christians?  Could it be that God is inviting us to bring more people to baptism in the Holy Spirit so that with a stronger voice we can raise our prayer for mercy?

Back to out point:  Empowered by the Holy Spirit, we can even pray 'in the Name of Jesus' by allowing the Holy Spirit to supply the words for our prayer:  "Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do nto know howw to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself interceds for us with sighs too deep for words" (Rom 8:26).  This is why, when we sing the ancient hymn to the Holy Spirit, Veni Creator Spiritus, the Church sings:  "Tu septiformis munere / digitus paternae dexterae, / tu rite promissum Patris, / sermone ditans guttura"; one English translation has it:  "Thou in Thy sevenfold gifts are known; / Thou, finger of God's hand we own; / Thou, promise of the Father, Thou / Who dost the tongue with power imbue."  Hence does St Paul tell us in several places to "pray at all times in the Spirit" (Eph 6:18) and he himself admits:  "I will pray with the Spirit and I will pray with the mind also" (1 Cor 14:15).  St Jude Thaddeus also says:  "...pray in the Holy Spirit" (Jude 1:20).

4.  Pray According to the Word
In His 'High Priestly Prayer' during the Farewell Discourse, the Lord Jesus said that "If you abide in Me, and My Words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you" (Jn 15:7).  Our familiarity with the words of Jesus--and, by extension, the entire Word of God--thus gives us a certain familiarity with the ways of God such that we learn how to pray for those things according to the mind of God.

Unfamiliarity with the Word of God leaves us guessing at what God's will is; without a wholehearted disposition of "Thy will be done" that comes with knowing God and his ways through the Bible, our prayer loses its full potential.  Though we may not have full insight into God's will, by fixing our intention for "living in the Word," our hearts are so formed that obedience to God becomes our 'default' position; still, our knowledge of the Bible equips us with a sense of direction prayer:  "For Thy testimonies are my meditation, and Thy statues are my counsellors" (Psalm 118 [119]:24, Greek).  The Word of God, then, counsels us how and what to pray for.

It is only by storing up the Word in our hearts that we can discern God's will and pray accordingly:  "And this is the confidence which we have in Him, that if we ask anything according ot his will he hears us" (1 Jn 5:14).  St Thomas Aquinas teaches clearly that prayer does not change God's mind to take a different direction, nor does it poke him for things he might have overlooked.  Rather,

For we pray not that we may change the Divine disposition, but that we may impetrate that which God has disposed to be fulfilled by our prayers in other words "that by asking, men may deserve to receive what Almighty God from eternity has disposed to give," as Gregory says [Dial. i, 8] (S.th., 2a2ae, q. 83, art. 2, resp.).

When I was in the seminary, we were told to prepare for our homilies "with a Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other," meaning that we are to illumine the events of the day with the light of God's Word.  I would take this a step further:  We engage in intercessory prayer with our Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other because, as the Second Vatican Council tells us, "the Church has always had the duty of scrutinizing the signs of the times and of interpreting them in the light of the Gospel" (Gaudium et spes, 4).  If we are to pray for an end to COVID-19, the rubrics are no different.  Equipped with our knowledge of the Bible, the Lord calls us to scrutinize the "signs of the times in the light of the Gospel" and to pray accordingly:  What is God trying to tell the world?  What is God trying to tell the Church?  What is God trying to tell me?  My friend and our sister in Christ, Prof Dr Mary Healy, takes us in this direction in her superb article here.

Having discerned God's will regarding the plague in the light of the Gospel, we have that very clarity needed to pray strategically.

5.  Pray Humbly!
Permit me to make a daring statement:  The truly humble has God wrapped around his finger.  Of course, it is impossible to control God; what I mean here is that God so loves the disposition of the humble person that he is swift to his or her aid.  "O Lord, You will hear the desire of the meek; you will strengthen their heart, You will incline Your ear to do justice..." (Ps 10:17, 18).

In the Old Testament, both Manassah and Hezekiah, both renowned for their wickedness, received an answer to their prayers on account of their humility:

And when Ahab heard those words [of Jezebel's sins], he tore his clothes, and put on sackcloth upon his flesh, and fasted and lay in sackcloth, and went out dejectedly.  And the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, "Have you seen how Ahab has humbled himself before Me?  Because he has humbled himself before Me, I will not bring the evil in his days... (1 Kgs 21:27-29);

But Hezekiah did not make return according ot the benefit done to him, for his heart was proud.  Therefore wrath came upon him and Judah and Jerusalem.  But Hezekiah hubled himself for the pride of his heart, both he and the inharbitants of Jerusalem, so that the wrath of the Lord did not come upon them in teh days of Hezekiah (2 Chr 32:25-26).

St Peter wrote, "Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that in due time he may exalt you.  Cast all your anxieties on him, for he cares for you" (1 Pt 5:6).  Likewise, St James, "Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you" (Jas 4:10).

But this begs the question:  What, exactly, is humility?  The best answer I have heard was from a preaching by a Minorite friar, Fr Leo Clifford:  "It is simply the truth...that apart from God, we are nothing!"  This, in turn reminds us of the meaning of grace, the free, unearned, costly grace of God that's ours for the asking, provided that we credit nothing to ourselves and everything to God.  This is why the Publican went away forgiven, because he prayed humbly, whereas the "religious" man multiplied his sins by his presumptuous prayer (Lk 18:9-14).

Sisters and brothers in Christ:  God wills only good things for us!  But the storehouse of God's goodness must be asked for aright.  Let us pray with all repentance and humility.  Let us be filled with the Holy Spirit and pray in the Name of Jesus.  Let us hide the Word of God in our hearts so that it beats like God's own heart, and thus be able to see the world's sorrow in the light of the Gospel and thus be equipped to know what to pray for on the way to God's merciful cleansing this world of COVID-19.