6th Week of Easter (W)
How much more is there to say? What else is there to reveal? Jesus admits, “I have much more to tell you. . .” And then he adds this ominous line: “. . .but you cannot bear it now.” He's already revealed his fate and the fate of those who faithfully follow him – persecution, arrest, torture, and death! He thinks we can bear that but not the “much more” he has to tell us? Maybe we don't want to know much more. Maybe we know enough. Just enough to get by and get to heaven. The “much more” left unspoken could tempt us to think that there's a trove of secret knowledge out there just waiting to be discovered. Some cryptic manuscripts of forbidden lore that will explode everything we think we know about the faith. The early Church battled several Gnostic sects that claimed to possess occult knowledge about how we are saved. Dan Brown and his anti-Catholic fantasies are just the most recent manifestations of this ever-present shadow fiction. Since the serpent whispered to Eve, we've been tempted with feeling special b/c we know something others don't. Well, here's the secret: you and I are the “much more” that Jesus has to reveal. You and I are “much more” b/c the HS is with us.
You and I are the Body of Christ. His Body is animated by the HS. Just like the human person is body + soul, so the Church is a body and a soul. One Body, one Spirit. The “much more” to be revealed isn't a new truth or a treasure of secret knowledge. It's me and you and the whole Church living minute-by-minute in the world, for the world, revealing to the world all that Christ has left us to reveal. The disciples couldn't bear the “much more” b/c they couldn't live past their own witness to Christ in the first century AD. Imagine the HS showing Peter, Paul, and James the horror of the Holocaust and the Church's faithful response. They couldn't bear it. Each century needs its own witnesses. Each era needs its own saints. The HS raises voices to speak the Word where the Word is needed most. Right here, right now, you and I are needed right here, right now. We are the “much more” that Jesus has to say. Living confidently, zealously right where we are, we bear the HS, standing for the truth of the Gospel. To the world, we are a plague. For the world, we are a revelation.
