Today I have a question, or really a series of questions for which there is no single answer. Actually it’s a general question, perhaps, a topical question you might consider. The topic is about “waiting.” When was the last time you had to wait for something? How did you feel about waiting? The reason there is no one answer is that waiting is a very personal event. And how we respond is personal too.
There are many different circumstances for waiting. There is waiting in line at the bank or postoffice, or at that so-called “fast food” restaurant, and wondering why the character in front of me is taking so long to make a simple decision, like how much money should I take out, or how many stamps should I buy, or do I really want to super-size my fries?
Or there is waiting in a regular restaurant for the so-called “wait staff person” to notice I really exist and have existed at that same table for the last ten minutes. Or there is waiting for the bus to arrive and wondering if I just missed the last one by a few minutes and will need to wait an hour for the next one. In each case we may, at first, feel frustrated or irritated. If the waiting goes on even longer, we may feel lost or abandoned. But these instances are trivial compared with other events for which we might wait.
Some of us are now waiting, longingly, for the school year to end. Of course, I’m thinking of the teachers, not the students, and certainly not the parents. Each group has its own reasons for the time to pass either more quickly, or more slowly. But this, too, may be a trivial example of waiting for the passage of time, the moment when a conclusion is reached, and the next period of waiting can begin.
There are, however, other events we want to see concluded. We wait for them, too. We wait for the results of the meeting of our bishops in Dallas next month and a meaningful resolution of the turmoil in our church1. Some wait for a true change in our economy and an end to the confusions of the marketplace. And some wait for an end to violence in the Middle East and a time when the Church of the Nativity represents, once more, “life” rather than “death.”2
Yes, this is a time for waiting. A time when we are irritated and frustrated by the events around us. A time when we may feel lost and abandoned. Yet, this is also the season for hope. A season when we know, without firm proof, our God is still with us. It is a season in which we hear the words written by St Peter to the first Christians: “Beloved: sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts. Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope, but do it with gentleness and reverence …”
A reason for your hope. What, indeed, is the reason for your hope? The reason why we can wait without frustration and irritation. The reason why we can wait without feeling lost and abandoned. The reason why we can know with full conviction that we are not alone. Why we are not orphans.
In today’s Gospel, today’s Good News, Jesus was about to take final leave of his friends or so they thought. They would now need to wait for his return at the end of time, when all would be reunited with God. He knew they might feel as if he were abandoning them. And so he told them, and he tells us: “I will not leave you orphans, I will come to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me, because I live and you will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you.”
Yes, this is the season when we are again reminded that the Holy Spirit has been given to us, sent to us through the love of the Father and of the Son: To be our advocate, our guide, our defender, our counselor, the one who will be with us to show us how to wait with love and fortitude, with courage and patience.
Next Sunday we celebrate the Ascension of our Lord.3 The following Sunday we will celebrate the Feast of Pentecost and recall how the Holy Spirit was sent to the Apostles two thousand years ago. But today, and every day, right now in this very moment, and in all the moments to come, we celebrate the actual presence of this same Holy Spirit in our lives.
We do not wait for the Coming of the Spirit. In our baptism we have already received the Holy Spirit. In our daily actions, in our daily love for others, we reveal his presence in this world, a world that sometimes seems to be dominated by violence and terror but which we know is a world infused with hope and the Spirit of Truth, the spirit of life, the Holy Spirit of God.
Sixth Sunday of Easter; May 5, 2002
Acts 8:5-8, 14-17; 1 Pet 3:15-18; Jn 14:15-21
- This is the meeting at which our Catholic bishops discussed and promulgated the guidelines for addressing the issues of child abuse within the Church.
- The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem had recently been taken by Iraqi militants and used as a refuge or fortification against “coalition” soldiers.
- In the United States, this was the first year in which the Feast of the Ascension was transferred from Thursday, the fortieth day after Easter, to the Sunday following the Sixth Sunday of Easter.