May 28., 2023 / General
Feast of the Cenacle
Fr. Roger delivers his homily
Why is TODAY the Feast of the Cenacle? It looks like a rather non-significant day when nothing happens in the world and in the Church. And the date even changes each year! The Resurrection is finished, Jesus has gone up to heaven, and the Holy Spirit has not yet come. There is, however, the “upper room,” also called “Cenacle.” It looks like a very important part of the “charism” of the Cenacle.
If we take a look at the readings for today’s feast, we hear first Ezekiel, who makes a marvelous promise in the name of God: “I will give you a new heart, I will put a new spirit into you, I will be your God.” But a promise remains a promise: it gives hope, which is good, but it is only really good when the promise does happen.
And suddenly, with the 2nd reading, we find ourselves in the Acts of the Apostles, and this time, the promise comes from Jesus himself: “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit shall come upon you: and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem (…) and to the ends of the earth.” Another promise, but it sounds more urgent, so “they returned to Jerusalem and they went to the upper room, where they were staying.” And there, they did nothing but “with one accord, devoted themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus and his brothers.” (Remember, the “upper room” is the Cenacle). With the recent liturgical changes in most parts of the Church, Pentecost is tomorrow, so the promise will soon come true and the mission will begin, with Mary in the very middle of it. From the Cenacle to the Mission.
What does the Gospel add to this waiting in hope? What does Jesus say in his final prayer to the Father with his friends? Just before today’s Gospel, Jesus tells his Father something like, “I’ve done my job: they know now that all you have given me comes from you, and that the words I gave to them are the very words that You gave me.” He is the Word, and they know it. Then a few lines later, in today’s gospel, we hear: “May they be one as we are one. Now I am coming to you, and I am saying these things in the world that they may have the fullness of my joy in themselves. Sanctify them in truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I send them into the world. And I give my life for them so that they may also be sanctified by the truth.” Before the sending for mission, we have the “sanctify them in truth, in your word.” (Two days ago, in Harvard, without quoting Jesus, Tom Hanks proclaimed loudly: “Truth is sacred.”)
We have here two possible translations of one Greek world: “hagiazo,” to sanctify or to consecrate, and the meaning of that Greek word is something like, to enter gradually and totally into the life of God. From this Gospel, the meaning we have is that the mission is not first but second, it comes from this inner gift promised by Ezechiel of God’s Spirit being with us, and inviting us to be with Him. This is why they are in the Cenacle, one in prayer before they will be sent for the Mission, waiting for the Gift of the Spirit so that the Mission will truly be God’s Mission.
And here, I think we meet Mother Therese on something that was very important for her, but that is very hard to translate into English. The Cenacle Constitutions rightly say: this feast today “celebrates the mystery of prayerful expectation and waiting in retreat with Mary by the first assembly of the Church, directed to that outpouring of the Spirit which sent the apostles to the ends of the earth.” And they add: « We give witness to a good God, after our foundress who said that “God is good, even more than good, He is Goodness: Dieu est la Bonté même.”
Your Holy Foundress also said: « The great means to enter the way of holiness is ‘se livrer’ to our good God,” adding: “Make the experience of it and you will see that it is the true happiness that we would seek in vain without it.” Is this not the Gospel of today, sanctification in truth?
The only problem is the question that Saint Thérèse poses herself: “What does this mean, “se livrer”?” She admits, however, that “I understand the spaciousness of this word but I cannot explain it. It embraces present and future, it is more than to devote oneself or to give oneself, even more than to abandon oneself to God.” Wow, what does she really mean by this famous untranslatable French word?
She tries her best to explain it: “It is to die to everything and to oneself, no longer to busy oneself with the self, except to hold the self always turned toward God. It is not to seek oneself in anything, neither for the temporal nor for the spiritual. No longer to seek our personal holiness, but only the good pleasure of God.” And she adds: “It is a spirit of detachment that does not hold on to anything, neither to people, to things, to time, to places. It is to accept all, to subject oneself to all.” Only the good pleasure of God…
She explains further that it might look very difficult, but she insists: “There is nothing as easy to do as this. It only consists in making once only a generous act, saying in all sincerity: My God, I want to belong to you, accept my offering, and all is said. However, we need to remember that we have “given ourself.”
And Mother Thérèse concludes: “If we could understand beforehand the sweetness and the peace that we feel when we do not put any restriction with the good God: let us make the experience of it and we will see that this is true happiness, and that all is sought in vain without it.”
I think this effort on her part to explain her favorite word “se livrer” is not only the meaning of the religious vows but also exactly what John is saying in today’s gospel when he mentions “sanctification in truth.” “Sanctification” means to enter the realm of God, the “goodness” of God, and therefore the full truth of God which is goodness and love. This is what we ask for in a renewal of vows, and what we thank God for in a Golden Jubilee.
Homily delivered by Fr Roger Champoux, SJ
FEAST OF THE CENACLE
Golden Jubilee of Sr. Ana Malapitan RC
27 May 2023
Cenacle Retreat House
