From Archbishop Donoghue

Dear Friends in Christ,

I am always amazed at the consideration our Lord showed His Apostles, when He was talking with them just before His death. Some of that conversation we have heard in this morning's gospel, a gospel which begins with a perfect example of our Lord's consideration, when He says:

I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.

Since our Lord was God, we know that He had within Himself knowledge of all events, past, present and to come. What if He divulged to the Apostles just a tenth, just a hundredth of all that was to happen to them, and to the world in the first centuries after His death and Resurrection. Or suppose He had revealed to them the story of the rise of Christendom in the Middle Ages, followed by the terrible dissolution of the Protestant Reformation. Or suppose He had shown them visions of all the wars that were to follow the Industrial revolution - the wars of the modern age, with their terrible machines, and the death of millions and millions of innocent people. Indeed, as our lord said - it would not have been anything that the Apostles could have born - it might have broken their spirits - it might have kept them hiding in that upper room, never to leave its confines, never to begin their missionary journeys, and the building of the Church we love so well.

But our Lord understood the limitations of the human mind - He understood what we could bear and what was beyond bearing. He Himself, looking into the future on the night before He died, knew such agony that He sweated drops of blood. Who of us, looking into the future, seeing all that might yet befall us, or seeing what will befall us - who of us could bear it without breaking. The magic of peering into the future has always been an evil thing - when King Saul pulled the truth from the witch of Endor, when he discovered how displeased God was with him, and he saw further his own destruction and that of his sons, he fell down on the earth, stricken, broken, and full of remorse for a future he knew he could not change.

And so, knowing full well the terrible burden of being able to foresee, our Lord gave His Apostles, not the gift of divination, but a greater gift - a gift that comes with each day, with its triumphs and its pitfalls - a gift that fills us with the courage we need at the moment, and that helps us meet whatever challenges we must face - the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit of God, the third person of the Blessed Trinity, who is with us every moment of our lives, as long as we believe, and as long as we stay free from the seductions of evil.

Our Lord says:

But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth. He will not speak on his own, but he will speak what he hears, and will declare to you the things that are coming.

We believe that the Holy Spirit of God speaks through our Church, and we trust the Church to reveal to us the truth that is hidden, the truth that we need. He does not do this by filling our minds with details of what will happen tomorrow, or next week or next year, for He understands as Christ did, that we cannot bear up under the weight of this kind of knowledge. Rather, the Spirit fills us with an understanding of how we must prepare ourselves for the circumstances we will meet. And this we call vocation.

God called Mother Teresa, the saintly founder, not to tell tales about the world of the future. He called her to tell the world of how it must live in the present in order to meet the future - to live without excess, to live on the basis of giving, to live for others, and to find our own personal meaning in the enrichment and comforting of others, especially the poor and the dying. God sent this message to Mother Teresa, that if she would live like this, then she would always be ready to face the future, and His Spirit would remain with her. And He also sent her the knowledge that if she lived like this, many more would join her, so that the world would have many more people helping the world to face the future, whether it be a future of war or peace, of plenty or of deprivation - a world of sorrow and/or joy.

This life that she taught us, and that you live, is life open to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, He who was promised by Christ, He who comes straight from the heart of Christ. Jesus said, ÒHe will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine, and declare it to you.Ó We hear that declaration, dear sisters, in our vocation - for by our vocations, we listen - we listen to hear - not knowledge of what will happen, but to hear the words that will make us ready for what will happen.

When I survey the work of the Missionaries of Charity, born in the spirit of one who always listened to the voice of God, I see a family of women ready, without hesitation, to do what is needed, to meet the often severe and never ending demands of the poor, and to do this work, with the joyful voice of the Holy Spirit to lead them, in work, in song, in prayer.

This is vocation, and it is the heart and soul of our lives. As we prepare to celebrate this coming Sunday, the Ascension of our Lord to His Father in Heaven, we are t the same time, preparing to celebrate the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles, upon Mary the Mother of Jesus, and upon the whole Church, from that moment, until the present moment. For these days, let us concentrate our thanksgiving on this one thing - let us be as thankful, in our work and prayer, as we possibly can, that our Lord chose the right gift to leave us: - not the gift of magic, not the gift of divination, not the gift of seeing way too much for our own good, but instead, the gift of vocation - the gift of being guided by His Holy Spirit, the one He sends to teach us, to be our refreshment and our restoration, to be our Protector, who rises with us every day, who walks with us through the day's challenges, and who guides us into gentle peace at the end of day, when our work is done, saying, ÒCome to me, all you who labor, and are burdened, and I will give you rest.Ó

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