October 9, 2022 (Mass of the Holy Spirit)

by Fr. Xavier Lavagetto, O.P.

[This is the text composed by the homilist prior to delivering the homily.]

In last Tuesday’s Discovering Catholicism class, a student said, “It feels like I’ve been here a month.” …  It was just a week! ... Time seems relative to the tasks ahead and the anxiety you feel! Stanford seems to have its own unique speed!

Did you know that the word, school, comes from the Greek scholē’ for leisure? …  … Now that is either a sick joke or we’ve lost the point of education. … Reflective leisure at Stanford is often notable for its absence. The Greeks taught that leisure is the basis of culture and eudamonia, happiness, or rather and better translated as human flourishing. For joy is a dynamic; it is never a static possession.

Without leisure that reflects, our hearts too quickly dry up, and we feel like Ezekiel’s dry bones. And who will prophecy over me and give me new life? …  Living is a dynamic, not a distraction.

The Covid years put life on hold. It was a virus of the body that also infected too many minds with habits of distraction. Sure, distraction is a moment’s relief, but let it become an anesthetizing addiction, and we’ve lost ourselves. Distraction is not being truly alive. Well, we should pray with St. Serapion, Lord, we beg you make us truly alive!

Christianity’s goal is not some cold, moral perfectionism but forming a dynamic Christian community. Even as Christ embraced us in a saving kinship, we are to embrace one another. No wonder St. Irenaeus to write in 178, The glory of God is man, —men and women—, fully alive. … Who are you to be dull? 

We all have within us the antidotes to distraction’s poison. Everyone has internal guides if you notice, learn and act. Follow the lead of (1) what engages you, (2) what energizes you and (3) what connects you if you would be God’s work of art. (cf. Eph 2:10)

i). What engages you? What claims your attention and asks to be celebrated? Too many wait for life to engage them instead of boldly engaging life. Give yourself fully!

ii). What energizes you? … We all have had moments that re-charge us. What are your unique moments?  some help you’ve given, some kinship you’ve extended, some creative work you’ve done, some insight you’ve pursued? … Savor it; savor it often and recharge.

iii). What connects you? Each of us have had moments of communion. Some find it in nature, or with friends. But how about God? … When we stepped away from our selfish self, loneliness flees, beauty becomes more vivid, and we’re held in love’s embrace. Return to the love, return the love!    …..  These are often ordinary moments, but yet holy moments when done in the Spirit. God takes the ordinary and makes it extraordinary for those who notice, celebrate and pray.

Genesis tells us that the Spirit, God’s breath, hovered over the face of the waters, and God’s creativity began. It tells us God saw and said seven times, it was good, and the seventh time, it was very good. It tells us that God rested on the seventh day from all the work he had done. … Now that’s strange. God resting! Strange talk for a God whose mere word becomes reality! … Rashi, the medieval Jewish commentator asked about that verse: What did the world lack? …. Rest! Sabbath became, rest came; and the work was thus finished and completed. (Genesis Rabbah 10:9)

This is not the rest of sleep or distraction, it is the rest of taking delight.  … No gift of love is every really received until it is thankfully, joyfully received.

Too quickly we forget that God’s project for you is joy. Jesus prayed that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. (Jn 15:11) Jesus’s Spirit would make you a new creation … if you follow his lead. Paul wrote: All who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, …( Rm 8:14-17). Yet too many live a religion of fear or anxiety! Have they not heard Paul’s words: If God is for us, who can be against us? … Too many live lives of compliance and code, instead of Gospel adventure and Christ’s compassion.

God doesn’t want a punitive justice that punishes but offers a restorative justice that makes whole. … Yet we grow old and dull too soon! ... How different is God! As St. Augustine says, God is younger than we are. … God does not want us frozen but creative with the very life of the Spirit that hovered over the waters at the creation, that delighted in goodness on that first Sabbath, that sends you on a mission of being Christ image-bearing people.

We celebrate the Votive Mass of the Holy Spirit for the beginning of this academic year … you are all on mission: make the Gospel visible! As a second reading said To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. … Each of you has unique gifts to build up the body of Christ. And when you feel lost, Jesus send his Spirit to pray in you and guide you. … You are never abandoned unless you want to be.

I urge you to do a daily Examen, an examination of consciousness which has three moments: (1) Where was God in my day? (2) Relive and feed your heart with moment. And (3) finally, ask yourself how you could respond better to such moments tomorrow. Live a dialectic of God’s presence. Prayer is not about trying to persuade God; it is God’s Spirit trying to persuade you. Too many pray as if God were out there; his Spirit is in here. Heed St. Theophanes plea: “Do not deceive yourselves with idle hopes that in the world to come you will find life if you have not tried to find it in the present world.”  Live the Jesus in your hearts!