Homily for Wednesday of the 7th Week of Easter

For daily readings, see http://www.usccb.org/nab/readings/050708.shtml

Mary, Queen of Vocations, pray for us!

Come Holy Spirit, enlighten our hearts, and enkindle in us the fire of your love!

St. Paul pray for us!

Both of today's readings speak of goodbyes, which are hard to be sure, but a necessary part of a good life. Jesus asks us to follow Him, and to be led by His Holy Spirit, and this means for Paul, that He is continually driven by the Spirit to different places to preach the Gospel. Today, Paul is saying a tearful goodbye to the presbyters at Ephesus. Whenever biblical Christians say that the priesthood is unnecessary, I always point them to this part of the Acts of the Apostles, where Paul addresses the prebyters of the Church of Ephesus. The early Church had priests, there is no denying this, and the priesthood is an integral part of the apostolic tradition, as testified by Scripture. I hope that you are looking forward as I am to the Year of St. Paul proclaimed by our Holy Father, that I believe begins in June. We have so much to learn from Paul by spending a year praying with Him and meditating on his apostolic mission. His zeal and courage are to be an inspiration for those of us struggling to live out the charism of our Confirmation, and our call to baptize all the nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

On this graduation week as we say goodbye to our graduates, let us pray that with our Lord Jesus in today's section of his farewell discourse that the graduates of KU, especially those who have immersed themselves in the ministry of the St. Lawrence Center, may be consecrated in the truth. May they live in the world in imitation of Jesus, not hating the world but allowing the world to hate them. May they transform the world through an effective witness of the truth, beauty and goodness that is within them because they belong to Christ, and not to the evil one. May they experience the fullness of life that comes from the grace of Christ received through the Holy Sacraments of the Church, and live in this world joyfully even as their hearts remain set on the eternal things of heaven, where Christ has ascended to sit at the right hand of the Father!

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