The Apostles Creed - Part 9

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. Amen.

Love unites us. Love unites people with God and with each other. But the Holy Spirit is love – the eternal love between the Father and the Son. And the Holy Spirit is now at work in the world. It stands to reason, therefore, that the Holy Spirit is now uniting people with God and with each other. If we look for this unification, where do we find it happening? It is happening in the Church. The Holy Spirit is uniting men and women of every nation, race, and tongue in the Church. The international, intercultural, multimillenial unity of the Church is therefore a sign to you that eternal love really is at work in the world. In the Church, the same love can go to work in you and through you. Next week we'll discuss how this happens...

God bless you all,

Fr. Isaac Spinharney, CFR

St. Joseph Friary

Harlem, NY 

To eat is to discern

We interrupt our series on the Apostles’ Creed for a brief reflection.  Recently, in the daily mass readings we have been listening to John 6, Jesus’ bread of life discourse.  The basic thrust of Jesus’ teaching is that faith in Him leads to reception of the Eucharist and reception of the Eucharist leads to eternal life.  Simply put, believing leads to eating and eating and leads to Life.

It could also be said that if eating leads to eternal life, then to eat is to discern.  In fact, according to Fr. Timothy Gallagher in his book Discerning the Will of God, regular reception and worship of the Eucharist is one of the principal means of discerning God’s will (pp.50-52).  Why is that?  Because, Jesus says “no one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him…” (Jn 6:44).  Where is this draw of the Father felt more powerfully than in the Eucharist?

In the Eucharist we are a gift from the Father to the Son, a gift Jesus promises to protect and to lead to the Father:  “All that the Father gives me will come to me; and him who comes to me I will not cast out.  For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me; and this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up at the last day” (Jn 6:37-39). 

When we eat a nice steak, we don’t become the steak, the steak becomes us.  But through frequent reception of the Eucharist—“the living bread” (Jn 6:51), “the flesh” of Jesus given for the life of the world (Jn 6:51)—we gradually become Jesus.  We gradually enter more deeply into His risen life and His relationship with the Father and we gradually adopt the fundamental disposition of His Sacred Heart:  “I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me…” (Jn 6:38).

This fundamental disposition of Jesus is the fundamental disposition of discernment:  openness to whatever God wills (see Discerning the Will of God, pp. 31-49).  To eat is to discern.  To eat is to be drawn by the Father through His Son, the Good Shepherd (cf. Jn 10).  Receive the Eucharist with confidence and know that you are already on the Way (cf. Jn 14:6).

God Bless You,

Fr. Isaac Spinharney, CFR

St. Joseph Friary

Harlem, NY

The Apostles Creed - Part 8

He will come again to judge the living and the dead.

Jesus will return to earth someday – we know not when. He told us that he did not come to condemn the world but to save it. So, when he comes as judge, he will judge us in the tribunal of love and mercy. It is called the tribunal of love because God will put one question to your life. Did you love Me back? And His judgment will be nothing other than the manifestation of the true answer to that question. It is called the tribunal of mercy because God wants to show mercy to all, that is, to heal us so profoundly that we do in truth love him back. His mercy is always there for us, he is eager to show mercy, and he turns away none who ask for his mercy. All who call upon his mercy receive it in abundance, and so long as they call upon it they undergo a gradual transformation that prepares their hearts to hear a glorious verdict in the tribunal of love. Only those who are deliberately skeptical of his mercy, who harden their hearts against his love, need to fear the tribunal. How does his mercy, by being believed, prepare our hearts for the glorious verdict?

To be continued...

For those who are called, religious life is the place or the "state" where we "love Him back."  It is the place where we undergo the "gradual transformation that prepares our hearts to hear a glorious verdict in the tribunal of love."

God bless you all,

Fr. Isaac Mary Spinharney, CFR

St. Joseph Friary

Harlem, NY

The Apostles Creed - Part 7

In our reflections on the creed, we now turn to the Ascension of Jesus:

He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

Jesus is a fountain of resurrection-life. He lives with the Father and the Holy Spirit in heaven. Jesus is calling you to turn to Him, to believe in the love he showed for you on his cross, and to believe in the resurrection-life overflowing from him right now. To all who turn to him, he gives the power to become children of God, adopted sons and daughters of the same eternal Father, vessels of the same Spirit of love, men and women who live in the knowledge of the love of God.

God bless you all!

Fr. Isaac Mary Spinharney, CFR

St. Joseph Friary

Harlem, NY

The Apostles Creed - Part 6

Happy Easter!   Brothers, discernment involves dying and rising with Jesus so that we can live the new life--the Resurrection-life--that He is calling us to!  We continue our meditations on the Apostles Creed by reflecting on this awesome mystery of mysteries...

On the third day he rose again.

Three days after Jesus died for you and for all, your heavenly Father raised Jesus from the dead. Jesus did not simply resuscitate. He did not simply get back his old form of life. Rather, your heavenly Father gave Jesus a new kind of life called resurrection-life. Resurrection life is a completely new form of human life. It was never lived or experienced by anyone before Jesus of Nazareth. He was the first to receive it. Pope Benedict XVI compared the resurrection to an evolutionary leap. Resurrection-life is a human life, but a human life not only lived without any wounds but filled to overflowing with the knowledge and the love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Jesus wants this life to overflow into you so that you too will be gradually healed of your wounds and filled to overflowing with the knowledge and love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That is how you will come to know your heavenly Father for yourself and to experience His love for you – by being filled with the resurrection-life of Jesus.

Christ is Risen, Indeed He is Risen!

Fr. Isaac Mary Spinharney, CFR

St. Joseph Friary

Harlem, NY

The Apostles Creed - Part 5

On this Holy Saturday, we continue our reflections on the Apostles Creed by reflecting briefly on the following words:

He descended into hell.

Jesus did not come for you alone. He was sent for all people of all time. After he died, the person of Jesus went to the abode of the dead to search out and find all the people who ever lived before him and to bring them too back to their heavenly Father. (At the time of his descent, hell was not what it is now. At that time, it was a temporary state, and not punitive. Now, it is different – it is permanent and punitive).

May almighty God bless you all as you celebrate Christ's Resurrection from the dead!

Fr. Isaac Mary Spinharney, CFR

St. Joseph Friary

Harlem, NY

Pope Francis!

Que Viva el Papa!  I know you won't mind that I interrupt our little series on the Apostles Creed this week to speak about our new Pope!  Brothers, all I can say is wow!  The Holy Spirit loves to surprise us and He’s done it again by choosing the first Jesuit pope; the first pope from the Western Hemisphere; and, dare I say most importantly, the first pope named after St. Francis of Assisi!  In a sense, all Catholics are Franciscan now and are invited to join Pope Francis in rebuilding the Church through the radical living of the gospel!

Continuing where Pope Benedict XVI left off, the Pope wasted no time in showing us where true and lasting renewal comes from:  Our Savior Jesus Christ!  Renewal is not a fruit of our own effort, but is a fruit of proclaiming Christ crucified and allowing Him to live in us!

The day after his election he proclaimed:  “…We can build many things, but if we do not confess Jesus Christ, nothing will avail.  We will become a pitiful NGO, but not the Church, the Bride of Christ… When one does not build on solid rocks, what happens?  What happens is what happens to children on the beach when they make sandcastles:  everything collapses, it is without consistency…. When one does not profess Jesus Christ, one professes the worldliness of the devil…. When we walk without the Cross, when we build without the Cross, and when we profess Christ without the Cross, we are not disciples of the Lord.  We are worldly; we are bishops, priests, cardinals, Popes, but not disciples of the Lord.  I would like that all of us, after these days of grace, might have the courage to walk in the presence of the Lord, with the Cross of the Lord:  to build the Church on the Blood of the Lord, which is shed on the Cross, and to profess the one glory, Christ Crucified!”

Brothers, now is a great time to be a Franciscan—to be a witness to the individual, communal and Church-wide renewal that living the gospel brings!  Whether we are called to don the Franciscan habit or not, all of us can heed Pope Francis’ call to rebuild the Church by embracing Christ crucified and allowing Him to rebuild us!  What a blessed time to be a Franciscan!  What a blessed time to be a Catholic!  God bless you all!

Pax et bonum!

Fr. Isaac Mary Spinharney, CFR

St. Joseph Friary

Harlem, NY