In my work as
a priest, people often tell me about spiritual experiences that they
have had: sometimes they are experiences of the Lord in some way,
sometimes of someone who has died, asking for prayers or something
like that. Quite a large number of people do in fact have
spiritual experiences. However, often after a time people begin
to wonder whether they really did have these experiences, or was it
all in their imagination. Of course it is really impossible to
know, and in one way it is not even important. Usually the
experience will have helped them, and the rest is irrelevant.
In the first
reading today from the Acts of the Apostles—or the ‘adventures’
of the Apostles, as you might call them—Luke tells us how after
Jesus rose from the dead he continued to appear to the
Apostles. Not just once, but many times. Why? Probably to
convince them that they had not imagined it. One thing that he
did on at least two occasions was to eat something with them.
The first time when he appeared to them in the room, they were all
standing there speechless, and he said ‘Do you have anything here
to eat?’ So they gave him a piece of fish and he ate it in
front of them. Then they knew it was not just a vision, but a
real person, the same real person they had known before. It was
not even food that he had brought with him, which could also have
been part of a vision, but it was something they gave him and then
they watched him chew it and swallow it. This was a beautiful
and very human thing to do; something that we could completely relate
to.
Luke also
says that he not only appeared to them, but he also continued to tell
them about ‘the Kingdom.’ What is ‘the Kingdom?’
What was he telling them about? I have no doubt that he was
telling them about the reality of heaven: life with God which He has
created us for; that it is real and that we could also lose it if we
are foolish. There we will be reunited with the people we love and we
will experience happiness there in a way that we can not even begin
to imagine now. He was probably also explaining to them what
the purpose of his life was on earth, why he had to suffer and die
the way he did, what all this meant for the human race; God’s plan
for his people. Also he probably told them that he had a lot of
work for them to do and that they must remember that their life here
on earth was a time of service and not to worry if things were not
easy, because when their work here was done he would bring them home
to be with him again. Why were they suddenly able to go out and
start preaching to everyone about a man that most people had never
heard of before and not only preach about him for a while, but for
the rest of their lives with passion? I think all of them ended
up being martyred, but they didn’t care, because they knew that the
only thing that was important was to be faithful to the Lord Jesus as
best they could.
Why am I
telling you all this? Because the same thing exactly applies to us.
The Apostles were real people and these are real experiences that we
are reading about. Our life on earth is just as short as theirs was
and it is also a time of service, just as theirs was. For most of you
it will be serving by looking after your families. For single people
and also for priests and religious it will be in a slightly different
way. But that is why we are here, to learn to love, to serve, to
freely choose for or against God. However, I think it is also worth
remembering that we are living in a time when people are very cynical
about religion, and they point to the scandals as being ‘proof’
of just how hypocritical the whole thing is. We must not let that put
us off. It has always been difficult to believe and probably always
will be, but we must ask the Lord himself to help us to persevere and
not become negative or cynical. And when our time here is complete
God will come and bring us home. I have no doubt that this is
probably what Jesus was telling the Apostles about for those forty
days. He wanted them to have no doubt about why they were here, so
that we also could have a good understanding of our purpose here,
through their teaching.
May the eyes of your hearts be enlightened,
that you may know what is the hope that belongs to his call.
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